It’s no secret how much the USPS has been struggling in recent years. With the rise of the Internet and ubiquitous email drastically cutting snail mail volumes and stamp sales revenues, coupled with a disastrous 2006 Congressional mandate forcing the agency to annually contribute huge payments into postal employees’ retirement and health benefits to fully fund it 50 years into the future, the USPS has been running annual operational deficits most of this century. Since 2006, the postal service has been handling less snail mail year after year, and it’s been losing more and more money. In 2019, the USPS handled about a third less mail than in 2006.
Postmaster General Louis DeJoy saw these annual deficits and created a 10-plan to alleviate them, though it may not be the plan that will actually alleviate deficits. In fact, DeJoy’s new plan could have several negative effects, such as longer and less reliable mail delivery times, higher mail service rates and a larger workload for existing postal workers.
DeJoy’s plan to cut service levels while raising the cost to use USPS services appears more likely to push the USPS into a death spiral. And while Donald Trump famously feuded with the Postal Service, Republicans have targeted the postal institution for privatization for a long time.
As The Washington Post’s Paul Waldman noted in an August 2020 column, the reason for this is likely that the USPS represents everything Republicans hate, and getting rid of it serves a goal they all tend to share.