For people in rural communities like mine, the United States postal service is not a luxury, it’s a necessity. Despite rural reliance on USPS not a single member of the current board is from a rural community and the current chairman, Louis Dejoy, who has sought to politicize and rollback services, needs to be fired immediately. 

The Postal Service is essential and can be a critical tool in our fight against income inequality. I currently have to drive twenty miles to reach the closest bank. Choosing to live in rural America should not by synonyms with choosing inconvenience and disenfranchisement. Approximately 68 million Americans are underserved by the banking system and low income Americans end up spending approximately 10% of their income on banking services. We can solve this unnesearcy challenge by having every post office offer basic bank services like check cashing, small transfer, loans and bill paying. 

We cannot accept a pursuit of profits to roll back the services millions of people in rural and low-income communities rely on. By ending the pre-funding mandate (a unique and unnecessary mandate that requires retirement benefits to be funded decades in advance) and by allowing a modernization in services that could include digital services that are now necessary, we can bring the postal service into the 21st century.