RUTHFULLY YOURS

Postmaster General Louis DeJoy’s bizarre and frankly childish behavior during testimony before Congress wasn’t the U.S. Postal Service’s worst moment last week. That came two days later.

DeJoy, appearing before the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, was told by Republican Rep. Rich McCormick of Georgia that he is “responsible for the fall of the Postal Service and the lack of accountability.” DeJoy retorted that “this Congress is responsible for it falling apart” and insisted he was “trying to fix” the post office.

He then told McCormick that “you’re talking to yourself” and covered his ears with his hands like the “hear no evil” monkey. (See it for yourself here.)

Appalling as that was, DeJoy’s antics were overshadowed when the Washington Post reported that even after the Biden administration committed $3 billion to buy electric delivery trucks for the post office, the contractor it hired, Oshkosh, has delivered only 93 of what was supposed to be 3,000 EV trucks by now.

“Postal Service’s electric mail trucks are way behind schedule,” the Post says. “The delays put Biden’s climate goals at risk.” (Concern for the phantom danger of “climate change” outweighs the gross incompetence of the federal government in the eyes of the Post.)

The “historic” White House initiative that was ultimately to deliver 60,000 Next Generation Delivery Vehicles to the post office has been “plagued by manufacturing mishaps and supplier infighting,” says the Post. Rather than building 80 a day, as was the expectation, the company is cobbling together just one.

OK, so maybe this isn’t the Postal Service’s fault. And Biden might even deserve a little slack on this one. He has no direct line to the manufacturer’s troubles.

Still, a thread exists. Biden could have used the dollars to buy mail trucks that would be built and delivered on time, but he chose to buy vehicles that would be, in the words of the Post, the “hallmark” of his “industrial and climate agenda.” Practicality and principled stewardship of taxpayers’ dollars were apparently never a consideration. It was all about Biden’s legacy.

We’re not letting the Postal Service off entirely, either. DeJoy could have put up a fight and demanded that Washington buy trucks from companies that build tens of thousands of vehicles a month and could produce mail trucks with only minor retooling of their manufacturing processes. No need for them to be “next generation” for simple postal delivery. They could be as austere and basic as the more than 600,000 frill-free Jeeps built for World War II by multiple companies.

This is a scandal not unlike Biden’s inability to build the EV charging stations he promised. As of last month, after $7.5 billion was allocated in 2021 for that project, only eight charging stations, which have between them 214 charging ports, had been built. Biden bragged earlier this year that he’d build a half million of them.

During Donald Trump’s first term in the White House, he talked about the possibility of privatizing the post office. He’s reportedly been talking about it again. Trump has an immense task ahead over the next four years, reining in the federal leviathan, but he’d do the country a favor if he resurrected that idea and completed the job.

It’s hard to think of another government department, agency, or administrative office that is. a better example of government incompetence than the U.S. Postal Service.