Rural America Deserves Better from USPS

Straight Talk with Sam

The holidays are upon us and with it all of the things that can bring us joy-family, gifts, carols, candy, you name it. One thing not bringing much joy this holiday season? The lack of consistent mail delivery. As family and friends from across the country gather around the dinner table, I'd be willing to bet whether or not your Christmas card or package showed up will come up in conversation.

We all know that, regardless of where we live, the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) has major problems, and they aren't improving. In fact, they're getting worse. I can tell you that is a grievance shared by folks across North Missouri and the country and I hear it every day.

As if the late delivery of ballots, prescriptions, bills or checks wasn't enough, now the Postal Service has concocted a plan to disenfranchise rural Americans. They can't get the mail to us on time as it is, now they just want to codify the idea.

The so-called "Regional Transportation Optimization" plan will cut the number of times USPS visits rural post offices to pick up outgoing mail. This will inevitably cause even more delays for folks in rural America.

I've written the Postmaster General to let him know this is a terrible idea. In fact, it's downright shameful. These changes would effectively create a two-tiered mail system. Rural Americans don't deserve to be treated as second-class citizens, but that's exactly what the bureaucrats at USPS are bound and determined to do.

At the same time, they've been raising postage rates repeatedly-essentially, pay more, get less. Thankfully, they've pressed pause on another increase in the near future, but they shouldn't have even thought about doing one until they figured out how to get the mail delivered on time. While they say the plan will save USPS, we've heard this before. In fact, we were told that making changes to postal retirement funding would fix everything. It wasn't true and mail service has gotten worse in the process.

To be clear, most of this doesn't fall on the local carriers, it's a management issue. Yet, we need more folks dedicated to delivering the mail on time. Perhaps if management focused on that instead of this ridiculous plan to reduce rural service or their failed electric vehicle expansion, the mail would be showing up on time.

I can assure you; this fight is far from over. The services provided by the Postal Service are essential, and we will not let them off the hook. The people of Missouri deserve better, and we will continue pushing for accountability and improvements.

Sincerely,

Sam Graves