3/12/21
Postmaster General Louis DeJoy was slightly less bombastic than the last time he testified in front of a House oversight committee, when he declared he was going to be in this job for "a long time. Get used to me." He was marginally less obnoxious on Thursday, when he
testified before the House Appropriations subcommittee on financial service. He even attempted contrition, sort of. Michigan Democratic Rep. Brenda Lawrence, a former U.S. Postal Service (USPS) employee of 30 years, chided DeJoy for springing his plans on the public. "I am going to use all the power I have to require you to stop doing press releases on massive changes and to at least give the United States Congress the courtesy of knowing your plan," Lawrence told him. His response didn't go over well. He said Lawrence was "well-known and respected within the Postal Service ," but the Postal Service of today and the condition we are in is not the Postal Service of 2008 when you retired." Bad move. "I am not naïve," Lawrence replied, reminding him that she's been in an oversight position in Congress. "So please don't imply that I'm ignorant." She wasn't done. "I don't want to be in this position again where we're going tit-for-tat and you seem annoyed and arrogant about answering the questions. We must work together because the Postal Service is bigger than you and I," she said.
Somewhat chided, DeJoy launched his "sorry, not sorry" routine. "Yes there are times where I leave these sessions, and I'm a little embarrassed about my behavior," DeJoy said by way of not really apologizing. It wasn't a smart move for someone asking for money for his agency from people he has regularly antagonized. That was, after all, why he was at the Appropriations committee.
He was asking the committee to give him more money so that he can implement his plan to slow mail delivery down. Yes, you read that right. More money so he can make the USPS operations worse from the customer's standpoint, on delivery. "We cannot go to California from New York in three days without going on planes, and we don't own planes." Never mind that the USPS also doesn't own enough trucks to carry all that mail and would have to contract out to companies like XPOLogistics, DeJoy's former company which he continued to have a financial stake in as recently as last fall. A company that had a booming 2020 following DeJoy's appointment to the job.
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