Congress Must Stand Up to the White House and Deliver Relief to the Postal Service

Congress Must Stand Up to the White House and Deliver Relief to the Postal Service

Congress Must Stand Up to the White House and Deliver Relief to the Postal Service

If our leaders don’t act, soon you may not be able to mail a letter at all.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: The Nation believes that helping readers stay informed about the impact of the coronavirus crisis is a form of public service. For that reason, this article, and all of our coronavirus coverage, is now free. Please subscribe to support our writers and staff, and stay healthy.

Each week we cross-post an excerpt from Katrina vanden Heuvel’s column at the WashingtonPost.com. Read the full text of Katrina’s column here.

This month, the US Postal Service sounded the alarm: Mail revenue could drop by more than 50 percent this year as a result of the novel coronavirus crisis. Without a large federal cash infusion, the USPS may not survive he summer.

On Capitol Hill, leaders on both sides of the aisle supported a postal relief package, but President Trump and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin intervened to keep it out of the final $2.3 trillion stimulus deal. Instead, the Postal Service received an offer of $10 billion in additional debt if it agreed to draconian conditions. According to the Post, Trump and Mnuchin are using the crisis as leverage to ram through long-sought hikes in package delivery rates and cuts to labor costs.

Lawmakers must stand up to the White House and deliver the relief the Postal Service needs—not only to survive but also to thrive.

Read the full text of Katrina’s column here.

We cannot back down

We now confront a second Trump presidency.

There’s not a moment to lose. We must harness our fears, our grief, and yes, our anger, to resist the dangerous policies Donald Trump will unleash on our country. We rededicate ourselves to our role as journalists and writers of principle and conscience.

Today, we also steel ourselves for the fight ahead. It will demand a fearless spirit, an informed mind, wise analysis, and humane resistance. We face the enactment of Project 2025, a far-right supreme court, political authoritarianism, increasing inequality and record homelessness, a looming climate crisis, and conflicts abroad. The Nation will expose and propose, nurture investigative reporting, and stand together as a community to keep hope and possibility alive. The Nation’s work will continue—as it has in good and not-so-good times—to develop alternative ideas and visions, to deepen our mission of truth-telling and deep reporting, and to further solidarity in a nation divided.

Armed with a remarkable 160 years of bold, independent journalism, our mandate today remains the same as when abolitionists first founded The Nation—to uphold the principles of democracy and freedom, serve as a beacon through the darkest days of resistance, and to envision and struggle for a brighter future.

The day is dark, the forces arrayed are tenacious, but as the late Nation editorial board member Toni Morrison wrote “No! This is precisely the time when artists go to work. There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal.”

I urge you to stand with The Nation and donate today.

Onwards,

Katrina vanden Heuvel
Editorial Director and Publisher, The Nation

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