President-elect Donald Trump's incoming administration is considering major reforms to the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) that include privatizing the agency, according to a new report.
The Washington Post's Jacob Bogage, Jacqueline Alemany and Jeff Stein wrote recently that Trump has expressed a "keen interest" in privatizing the USPS in conversations with transition co-chair and Commerce Secretary-designate Howard Lutnick. If he succeeds, it could result in uncertainty for both businesses that depend on the USPS and for the agency's 600,000+ member workforce.
Trump floated the idea in response to hearing of USPS' $9.5 billion in losses as of the current fiscal year ending September 30, saying the U.S. "shouldn't subsidize" the agency. But as the carrier of choice for many vendors due to its ability to deliver to far-flung, remote locations, the Post reported that privatizing the USPS may be a more difficult challenge than the president-elect and his team anticipate.
As part of the USPS' "universal service" obligation, the agency delivers to 12.6 million business addresses, and 154 million residential addresses. Many of those residential delivery points are in rural congressional districts and deep-red states, meaning Trump's plans to overhaul the Post Office could result in confrontations with Republican elected officials whose constituents treasure the USPS.
Additionally, the Post Office has already been making drastic cuts to its workforce and transportation expenditures under a 10-year modernization plan put in place by Postmaster General Louis DeJoy. An agency spokesperson told the Post that it's also revamping its mail processing and delivery timetables to be more in line with private sector competitors like FedEx and UPS. Democrats, in the meantime, are warning that replacing public service with a profit motive could be destabilizing for the agency.
“With much more runway ahead of them, they may very well focus on privatization, and I think that’s our big fear," said Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.). "That could have disastrous consequences, because when you go private, the profit motive is everything."
Because the Post Office is governed by the independent USPS Board of Governors, any potential privatization effort would have to come from board members, rather than from Congress. President Joe Biden has three nominees — Val Butler Demings, William Zollars and Marty Walsh — who are awaiting action in the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, though time is running out to confirm them. Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.) chairs the committee until the new Republican Senate majority is sworn in on January 3, though he has not yet announced confirmation hearings.
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Click here to read the Post's report in its entirety (subscription required).