Letter: GOP wants to close post offices, keep rural people uninformed

To the editor,

The GOP wants to shut down our post offices. Many rural Kentucky citizens depend on their post office for mailing in their bill payments each month. They depend on the postal service to deliver their medications by mail and for ordering and delivery of the things they need. Many live miles from town without a car and no internet service.

McConnell and his party don’t really care if rural people have cell service or internet. On June 10, 2013, Sen. McConnell voted against an amendment to establish a pilot program to make internet 100 times faster than the average high-speed in rural areas. Only 61 percent of Kentucky households have internet speeds that meet requirements for distance learning. Many rural youth are cut off from taking online college courses, or even accessing their school homework assignments.

The GOP appears to like keeping rural folks uninformed; they can lie to them about what they have done for them. Without internet and newspaper reporter cutbacks, there is no easy way to find out differently.

Mitch also opposes increasing the minimum wage (15 times he voted against_ and he doesn’t care if Kentuckians have a living wage, but he and the GOP approve “keeping the profits coming” for their corporate friends and the 1 percent.

The GOP is the party of the 1 percent. The Democrats are the party of the people.

Bonnie Humphries
Cadiz

Editor’s Note: According to an Aug. 17, 2014, column by Tom Eblen of the Lexington Herald Leader, neither Sen. Mitch McConnell nor the GOP and its policies are responsible for Kentucky’s slow internet speeds. The lags in broadband internet deployment is due to the fact that the expansion of broadband internet access is dependent on providers, who are reluctant to invest in providing service to rural areas that will not provide a return on their investment. Brian Kiser, the executive director of the Commonwealth Office of Broadband Outreach and Development, told Eblen that broadband providers want at least a dozen customers per mile in rural areas — a standard that is difficult to meet in many rural areas. For Eblen’s column, click here.

-30-