DeJoy has acknowledged the burden of the prefunding mandate, the repeal of which would require congressional action. (Most fund those obligations on a pay-as-you-go basis.)Ībsent that mandate, the Institute for Policy Studies calculated in 2019, the USPS would have consistently reported operating profits instead of losses. It’s true that the service’s revenues have come under pressure as letter mail gives way to electronic communications, and banks and retailers move away from mailing account statements and bills to customers in favor of dealing with them online.īut it’s well known that the biggest single burden on the service’s bottom line is a 2006 congressional mandate that it prefund its retiree healthcare liability, which no other government agency and few private businesses do. Its postmarks can legally serve as documentation of when an item was mailed, whether a postcard or a ballot. In return, it’s endowed with an effective monopoly on first-class mail. With few exceptions, its carriers are expected to reach every household. It’s expected to deliver letters anywhere in the United States for the same flat fee, whether it’s traveling across town or coast to coast. It’s true that its traditional standards can’t be profitable in customary business terms. It should go without saying that the USPS is not a business, but a public service. The basic flaw in discussions about the Postal Service is the idea that it’s a business. The betting here is that DeJoy won’t pay the recommendation any attention.Ĭolumn: Stop saying the USPS should be ‘run like a business.’ It’s not a business
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The analysis said that DeJoy’s estimate of cost savings from the changes seemed inflated and that they could “diminish its reliability.” The commission said it doubted the USPS could even manage the changes it was implementing, and recommended that they be delayed. The commission, which has a 3-2 Democratic majority, issued a critical analysis of the upcoming changes on Wednesday.
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But they will have significant effects on many postal customers.ĭeJoy’s actions are somewhat subject to the independent, five-member Postal Regulatory Commission, which has limited powers to block service changes. The changes are expected to save about $170 million a year, or about two-tenths of a percent of its operating budget of more than $82 billion.
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The changes in standards and rates that DeJoy is implementing in the next few days come right out of that strategic plan. To that end, he oversaw a 10-year strategic plan designed to narrow the service’s deficit the way a struggling private business would - by stretching out mail delivery deadlines, raising postal rates (perhaps steeply), cutting back on post office hours and closing branches. Questioned by congressional committees about noticeable declines in service on his watch, DeJoy, a former executive of a private logistics company, truculently defended his intention to make the service operate more like a business than a government agency. Possibly this reflected interference by then-Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who should have kept his hands off. Insiders related how Dejoy’s name had been inserted into the short list for postmaster candidates seemingly out of nowhere. On the other hand, he had been a major fundraiser for the Trump campaign. He was the first postmaster general in two decades not to have any experience with the service.
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The Postal Service’s complacency in the face of deteriorating performance must be blamed on DeJoy, whose appointment was orchestrated in 2020 by a Trump-controlled USPS board of governors. Louis DeJoy hasn’t been fired yet as postmaster general. She didn’t explain why air service is inherently more unreliable than trucking mail across the country or sending it by train.Ĭolumn: Remember Louis DeJoy? He’s still in charge of the Postal Service, but why? Doing so would require the agency to “rely on air transportation, yielding unreliable service,” she told USA Today. The math indicates, however, that fully 39% would take longer to reach its destination.Ī USPS spokeswoman called the old three-day standard “unattainable,” but that’s so only because the service doesn’t choose to meet it. The Postal Service said the changes would leave 61% of first-class mail volume unaffected, as if that were all to the good. As for “consistency,” the service’s strategy is perfectly analogous to what airlines do when their on-time flight performance deteriorates: They increase the standard for “on time,” and presto! Every flight is on time again.Ĭonsistently bad performance is consistent all right, but that doesn’t make it something to brag about. Increasing the time you have to wait to receive a letter isn’t an improvement in reliability or efficiency, but just the opposite.