Trump's crisis at the Postal Service will continue for the 'foreseeable future': report

The crisis at the United States Postal Service will not be fixed soon according to a new report by The Washington Post, which explained the two sides in the dispute.

"On one side is Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, who, with the backing of the U.S. Postal Service's governing board, is expected as soon as next week to outline a new vision for the agency, one that includes more service cuts, higher and region-specific pricing, and lower delivery expectations," the newspaper explained. "But congressional Democrats are pressing President Biden to install new board members, creating a majority bloc that could oust DeJoy, a Trump loyalist whose aggressive cost-cutting over the summer has been singled out for much of the performance decline. The fight over the agency's future is expected to be fraught and protracted, leaving Americans with unreliable mail delivery for the foreseeable future."

"Meanwhile, customers are fuming on social media and to postal workers about late holiday packages and days-long delivery gaps. Only 38 percent of nonlocal first-class mail arrived on time in late December, compared with 92 percent in the year-ago period, according to data reported in federal voting lawsuits. The agency has not disclosed performance data in 2021," the newspaper explained.

The Postal Service lost $9.2 billion in 2020.

"Democrats in Congress want a new postmaster general, which could happen only if the nine-member governing board changes. Though the administration has signaled it will move aggressively to rehabilitate the agency — Biden replaced the Republican chair of the Postal Regulatory Commission with a Democrat on Jan. 25 — there's not much the president can do to intervene immediately in postal operations," The Post explained.

The newspaper also broke news about how Democrats plan to respond to the crisis.

"Separately, lawmakers are considering an unusual accounting maneuver to give the Postal Service a nearly $100 billion credit for years of pension overpayments, according to four people familiar with the proposal, who spoke anonymously to discuss legislative plans. The move, which legislators in both the House and Senate have discussed and has not been previously reported, would shift responsibility for those funds onto the federal government," The Post reported. "But even that bailout wouldn't solve the agency's looming financial problems. The credit would eliminate a little more than half of the Postal Service's massive $188 billion in liabilities."