Joe Henderson: If fixing post office is vital, why did Donald Trump wait so long?

Image via AP.

President Donald Trump has been in office for about 3½ years. We know he is an agent of change, but the man also had an extensive to-do list. Some things just had to go on the back burner.

Between golf outings, trips to Mar-a-Lago, and watching Fox & Friends, maybe there wasn’t time to reshape the United States Postal Service to his liking.

But November 3 looms more significant every day, and we know what that means. What better time to make it harder for postal workers to do their job.

Oh, I’m not fair. Give the man his due. This isn’t happening now because he was busy. Turning USPS upside down now is a stroke of evil genius for someone who concedes that if more people vote by mail, he will lose.

Let’s fast-forward to Monday, shall we?

Postmaster General Louis DeJoy sat before the House Oversight and Reform Committee, and Democrats gave him a thorough grilling. He enacted procedural changes for postal employees that significantly slowed mail delivery in some places. But DeJoy is shocked, and appalled, and appalled, and shocked to even SUGGEST his finger is on the scales of the election.

DeJoy’s audience of one probably loved his faux outrage.

You may have heard that Florida held a statewide primary last week.

According to the state elections office, Republicans returned 808,518 mail ballots while Democrats had 1,183,161. Interestingly, as of Monday a substantial number of ballots from both parties were not returned: 568,377 from Republicans, and 855,204 from Democrats.

It’s true Trump’s crusade against vote-by-mail was amended to exclude Florida. The fact remains, though, that voting this way will continue to grow, especially in November unless, I don’t know, the virus just goes POOF!

I heard somewhere that might happen.

Since taking over in June, DeJoy, a mega-donor for Trump, ordered the removal of 671 sorting machines used to speed delivery, including 57 in Florida. He said last week that he will delay implementation of his efficiency improvements until after the election. But that won’t include reinstalling those sorting machines.

The Washington Post reported the machines represents 10 percent of the USPS total. The largest number of decommissioned machines are from swing states, including, of course, Florida.

Yes, the USPS loses a lot of money and probably could be more efficient.

In 2019, it ran about $11 billion in the red. That’s not chump change, in for a federal overall budget of $4.79 trillion (with a T). That’s why you hear some budget hawks occasionally parrot that the USPS should be privatized.

But the subsidies help consumers reduce the cost of mailing letters and Christmas packages to grandma. Recently, I sent an overnight envelope to New York via FedEx. The envelope held a folded-up newspaper and a couple of pieces of paper.

The shipping cost more than $38.

I could have done the same thing through the postal service for $12 less.

Libertarians would answer, “Yeah? So?”

Those with tight household budgets might respond differently.

And there is the well-voiced argument that more than ballots could be casualties of a deliberate mail slowdown. Prescriptions, Social Security and pension checks, and so on.

DeJoy’s actions don’t look like a man who gives a rat’s behind about efficiency.

But I’ll tell you what – I’m voting by mail, just as I always do. The system is secure.

To be safe, though, the local elections office is a short drive from my home. I’ll deliver the ballot there. I wouldn’t want to cause DeJoy any stress.