By Ben R. Williams
I felt tempted to write a column about the U.S. kidnapping the President and First Lady of Venezuela, but frankly, this is the third time in my lifetime that a Republican President has started a war for oil under false pretenses against the backdrop of a nationwide recession so I’m having a hard time getting worked up about it.
Instead, let’s talk about the United States Postal Service (USPS).
A few days ago, I stumbled across an item that’s gotten so little coverage that it appears the story was first broken by The National Society of Tax Professionals, although USA Today later picked it up along with a handful of local news agencies.
As of Christmas Eve, the USPS has adopted a new rule. When you drop off a piece of mail at your local Post Office, there is no longer any guarantee that the mail will be postmarked that day. Instead, the postmark will signal the “date of the first automated processing operation” at a processing facility, which could be a few days later.
If you want to make sure that your mail is postmarked on the day you dropped it off, you can request a manual postmark at the counter, ask for a Postal Validation Imprint (PVI), or purchase a Certificate of Mailing (or use Registered Mail or Certified Mail).
It’s fortunate that those options are available. However, I’m willing to bet that the vast majority of people will have no idea that USPS even made this policy change, much less that they can request a manual postmark. This story has not gotten a ton of traction, probably because it’s substantially less insane than everything else in the news right now.
Given this change, it’s easy to see why The National Society of Tax Professionals were among the first to report on this story. How many of us wait until the last possible moment to file our taxes? I know I’ve done it. Now if you drop your tax documents in the mail on April 15, there’s a decent chance that the IRS will consider it a late filing, which can result in financial penalties.
But of course, taxes are just the tip of the iceberg. Do you need to wait until the last minute to pay your rent or your mortgage or any other bills in order to make sure you have money in your checking account? Too bad! You might be getting hit with some late payment fees.
Like most U.S. policy changes, this will predominantly hurt poor people and elderly people. If you’re barely making ends meet, you’re far more likely to wait until the last minute to pay your bills. If you’re elderly, there’s a higher chance that you pay your bills by mailing a check instead of paying online.
So why did USPS make this change? Allegedly, the purpose is to cut costs and streamline mail processing.
I think it’s more malicious than that, and I believe this change was designed to do two things.
First off, it’s designed to invalidate mail-in ballots. What percentage of absentee ballots are dropped off at the post office on the day of the election? I have no idea, but I imagine that it’s a large enough percentage that it could potentially skew election results, or at least leave a foothold for an argument that a large percentage of absentee ballots are invalid.
The other goal is to erode faith in the USPS and push people toward using corporate shipping companies like UPS and FedEx in our nation’s ongoing attempt to privatize all government services.
If that seems outlandish, consider that the current United States Postmaster General David P. Steiner —handpicked by President Donald Trump just last year — served on the FedEx Board of Directors since 2009 and served as FedEx’s lead independent director since 2013.
As always, if you want to figure out why a government agency has made a policy change, the safest bet is to just assume the worst motivation imaginable.
