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DAVE ROSS

Ross: Sell the post office to Jeff Bezos

Aug 19, 2020, 6:52 AM | Updated: Aug 20, 2020, 5:58 am

post...

Mailboxes sit outside of a post office on August 17, 2020 in Morris Plains, New Jersey. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy has accepted House Democrats' request to come before Congress on August 24th to answer questions about recent policy and operational changes inside the postal service. (Photo by Theo Wargo/Getty Images)

(Photo by Theo Wargo/Getty Images)

Postmaster General Louis DeJoy is his post office cutbacks.

All it took was 21 states filing lawsuits and stories of military veterans seeing their medications delayed to convince the Postmaster General that now was not the time to be rounding up public mailboxes and unplugging the sorting machines.

But when DeJoy testifies later this week, I think we’re going to find out that this has all been in the works for quite some time.

It’s weird to me that the post office’s money problems are suddenly controversial when it’s been on the ropes for years. There’s private competition for package delivery, email and the smartphone long ago killed demand for first class mail, and it’s regularly blocked from raising postage rates.

So – we’re going to be right back here again unless there’s a radical change. Are you ready? Sell the whole shebang to Jeff Bezos for a dollar.

He already owns it one day a week – that being Sunday, to make deliveries to Amazon Prime customers.

Time to give him the other six days, and a free hand to innovate.

We’d get national two-hour drone delivery, you could go online and choose which junk mail to block BEFORE it’s stuffed into your mailbox, and as for delivering ballots – if there’s anyone who’s going to make sure those ballots are delivered intact and on time, it would be Jeff Bezos.

Listen to Seattle’s Morning News weekday mornings from 5 – 9 a.m. on ³ÉÈËXÕ¾ Radio, 97.3 FM. Subscribe to the podcast here.

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