Louis DeJoy is the Poster Boy for Federal Government Brokenness
Louis DeJoy, Trump’s appointee to Postmaster General is pretty much the last person who should be in that position except for maybe Screwy Louis Gohmert, who has his own issues. Here’s why:
- DeJoy is a GOP mega donor and fundraiser, and in recent years gave $1.2 million to Trump’s campaign and $1.3 million to the RNC. His wife is also a big donor and was state finance chair for GWB in North Carolina. She landed the US ambassadorship to Estonia for her contributions during that time.
- DeJoy has serious conflicts with the Post Office. He is heavily invested in businesses that compete with the Post Office, holding as much as $75 million in the stock of competitors, one in particular being the company that bought his own logistics company for over $600 million.
- DeJoy is being investigated for possible illegal political donations where he extracted large donations to Republicans from his employees, then reimbursed them through bonuses.
So it’s no surprise that he’s under fire after being nominated by Trump and then confirmed by a board of governors that is dominated by Trump appointees. Historically, the Post Office was strictly non-partisan, including the board of governors, since it served all Americans. In recent years, though, boards have been hyper-partisan, including the FEC and others. Not to be naive, many mega donors are given cush positions in both Dem and Repub administrations after writing big checks; they get ambassadorships, committee seats, even cabinet positions, BUT, and it’s a big BUT, they all go away when their President vacates the WH. Hence the problem. Trump attempted, and in the case of DeJoy succeeded, in appointing partisan supporters to permanent staff positions.
Let’s be honest here; the Post Office has been a target for privatization by Republicans for decades. Where else could you find a multi-billion market that has over 300 million Americans held hostage to it? The independence of the Post Office has been whittled away for years, and the last nail in the coffin was driven in 2006 when the Congress required it to pre-fund 75 years of retiree health obligations. There was no reason to do that except to make it permanently lose money so Republicans could demand that it be privatized to fix it after they broke it.
The problem here is that demanding that the Post Office be cashflow positive is just as silly as demanding that the defense department turn a profit. It’s not set up that way. Unlike Fedex and UPS, the Post Office is mandated to serve ALL Americans, which include those in sparsely populated areas of the country. In fact, if you order anything delivered by Fedex or UPS and you live in a rural area, it’s most likely the Post Office will deliver that package. Just try to drop off a Fedex package in Valentine Texas, population 217. You can mail it, but you can’t Fedex it without driving over 35 miles to Van Horn. Why? Fedex can’t make money having a presence in Valentine. The Post Office doesn’t (and shouldn’t) have that luxury. The amazing thing, though, is that Valentine, and much of rural Texas, is serious Trump country. They rabidly support the guy and his party who’s actively sabotaging their way of life. Go figure.
The worst part of DeJoy being postmaster general is that he’s actively sabotaging the Post Office. During the election, he slashed spending, shortened hours, took out sorting machines in busy hubs, and slashed personnel. Add that to the challenges of the COVID outbreak, and within 3 months the Post Office was delivering over 80% of the mail late, much not at all. Millions of packages were delayed, destroyed, or just plain lost. I believe this effort was to undermine confidence in mail in voting, and in large part that worked. Like many, I decided to return my mail in ballot and vote in person to make sure my vote counted.
There’s simply no excuse for a radical partisan like DeJoy to be within 100 miles from the Post Office, much less running it while shooting the finger to the Congress. He’s cemented in, though, until Biden can get enough governors on the board to fire him. That’s not good enough. DeJoy should be immediately removed for conflicts of interest and gross mismanagement. The fact that Biden (who, unlike Trump, plays by the rules) can’t fix this problem shows just how broken our government is, and it’s long past time to fix it.
“The worst part of DeJoy being postmaster general is that he’s actively sabotaging the Post Office.”
The worst worst part of it is how gleefully and (for want of a better word) sadistically he is going about it…
1How about a continual round of public humiliation for DeJoy and the current *rump appointed board of governors? Biden should call them out, often and by name.
“Public humiliation or public shaming is a form of punishment whose main feature is dishonoring or disgracing a person, usually an offender…, especially in a public place. It was regularly used as a form of judicially sanctioned punishment in previous centuries, and is still practiced by different means in the modern era.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_humiliation
2I did read, though, he did plan on changing the 75 year retiree health plan obligation, and get a number of employees on Medicare. It will help the numbers a bit, but overall, he is not the person to be handling these changes.
3And an independent IG and perhaps FBI, should take a look!
4Ron #3 – I’ll believe it when I see it.
We live in one of those rural areas, and as much as I love our postal folks – they have an impossible job. One of the places the ironically-named DeJoy took out sorting machines was the hub that serves our area…I haven’t gotten anything on time since he took over.
As for the ‘alternatives’ – UPS is the only one that can find our house. FedEx and DHL….not so much – including the time that (with clear skies and dry roads) FedEx claimed they couldn’t deliver a package ‘because of extreme weather conditions’!
5I called my local P.O. yesterday and was told that there was a two month wait before I could get an appointment with the passport clerk. (The P.O. does many things besides delivering mail.) My mail for the past 6+ months has often been delayed, and sometimes lost. I also drove my ballot to the County Court House prior to election day in November. I wasn’t going to take any chances of it getting “lost in the mail”! Classic Republican obstructionism. Get rid of DeJoy!
6When Lee Iacocca worked for Ford Motor Co and Ford couldn’t fire him, they gave him an office in the basement with no window, secretary, or telephone.
7re: DeJoy should be immediately removed for conflicts of interest and gross mismanagement.
Those who could remove him are on the Board of Governors, currently
8Ron A. Bloom, Chairman, Board of Governors
Roman Martinez IV, Vice Chairman, Board of Governors
John M. Barger
Robert Duncan
Donald L. Moak
William D. Zollars
On March 15, Biden nominated 3 more to take the BoG up to full strength. As of today, no committee hearing schedule is announced. I’ve yet to see if the addition of those 3 will create a majority in favor of removal, or if Biden will need to replace additional BoG members.
DO NOT enter into discussion about post office profitability with anyone. It’s a service. It’s not supposed to make a profit. It’s not a business. We don’t ask the Department of Agriculture to turn a profit, nor the Navy, nor the National Weather service, nor etc., etc., etc. The only time this profit thing raises its head is when the powers want an excuse to privatize it, or just make it go away, like Amtrak.
9This jerk brazenly sabotaged post office operations leading up to the 2020 election. There should be Senate hearings and DOJ investigations while waiting for a board that will fire him. We were told that our mail in ballots may not be delivered in time so I opted to use a drop box in front of the county seat. Here in California, Republicans in several counties put out unofficial drop boxes that were labeled official. So far they have gotten away with it. I live in a city of 150K with three large Post Office branches. Since this guy took office, we receive zero mail at least once a week, sometimes twice. And Congress needs to fix the pension joke ASAP.
10@Wyatt_Earl #9: Right On Dude, Sing it Loud!
11Please don’t overlook the fact that the Postal service and the U.S.Patent and Trademark office are a couple of the few government organizations that actually have some income. Congress has for years, dating back to the days of Tom Delay, been diverting income from both these organizations to other areas preventing them from using the funds they generate to improve their own services.
12