It employs over half a million people, including , US military veterans. Package delivery is an increasingly important and financially successful part of its model, and it has contracts with online retailers and e-commerce companies like Amazon to provide "last mile" shipping for its packages.
In recent months, the continued success of package delivery and substantial increases in package volume the agency is processing over levels has helped soften the blow of the sharp decline in first-class mail and improved the agency's financial outlook. The Postal Service is especially burdened by federal legislation, the Postal Enhancement and Accountability Act, that required it to prefund all current and former employee retirement and health benefits in advance as opposed to a "pay as you go" system.
Trump, who has been hostile to the idea of expanding vote by mail, is opposed to any measures to help the Post Office. He had no experience working at the post office. DeJoy's lack of experience within the Postal Service itself, his profile as a Trump donor, and his significant holdings in the post office's competitors immediately raised suspicion that his leadership could further undermine the agency. In remarks to the Postal Service Board of Governors, DeJoy has emphasized that he's committed to keep providing timely mail delivery, including of election mail, while warning that "without timely legislative and regulatory reform, we will be forced to take aggressive measures to cut costs and bridge the divide.
Still, congressional Democrats and some Republicans are expressing concern to DeJoy about the sweeping changes and stark new delays taking place ahead of the election. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called on DeJoy to "quickly reverse his operational changes that have led to delays and service reductions for too many Americans and threaten to undermine our democracy" in a Friday statement.
On Friday, CNN reported that the Postal Service's inspector general has opened investigations both into the new changes and DeJoy's possible financial conflicts. Here are some of the recent changes DeJoy has implemented to the Postal Service's operations to help the agency reduce costs , some of which are contributing to mail delays in many parts of the country. The first President to engage in overt partisanship involving the Post Office was actually Jefferson, who was in office between and He actually replaced ten per cent of federal employees, most of whom then worked for the Post Office, with his own supporters.
But Jackson, who was in from to , really institutionalized postal patronage with his spoils system. He created this rotation-in-office policy that replaced thirteen per cent of the postal workers, and postal workers were three quarters of the federal workforce, with his Democrats, regardless of merit. Jackson made the Postmaster General a Cabinet officer, which was a big deal.
Jackson also took his very righteous Postmaster General, John McLean, who was a brilliant executive, and kicked him upstairs to the Supreme Court, and installed his cronies.
And, from then on, the spoils system allowed whichever party won the White House to hand out tens of thousands of jobs to its supporters. So, in a bizarre way, even though it was born from partisanship, it was kind of nonpartisan because both parties exploited it to the highest degree.
How much politicization was there from that time up until the Nixon era? Both parties used it for their advantage in terms of handing out patronage jobs. But, in general, the Post Office has always gotten a lot of bipartisan support, and many of the great Postmaster Generals have been Republicans. He was an interesting guy.
He made a fortune with Wanamaker Department Stores, and became one of these rich guys who could have been a robber baron himself. But he wanted another challenge, and he decided on public service, so he took on the Post Office, and then it was phenomenally powerful. People wondered at it. Railway mail service sped up the mail, and the cars were stocked with postal clerks who sorted all the letters while the trains were moving.
People some days got same-day replies. It was a huge engine of America as a global power. He felt that, the same way his department store gave people good merchandise for reasonable prices, the Postal Service could do the same. But in rural areas, you had almost no horizons. If you needed something, you had to pay what the store wanted to charge for it.
The railroad monopolies charged a fortune to ship a parcel to you. His big claim was rural free delivery. During the Civil War, people who lived in cities got home delivery of letters. Before that, everyone had to go to the post office to pick up their mail. So, can you say that was political? But it was democratic, and in favor of the people. The Post Office is by nature political, if political means related to the government and public affairs, but political to serve what end?
The U. House of Representatives Oversight committee recently warned the service might have to cease operations by June. In a joint statement, committee Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney and Representative Gerry Connolly, who chairs the subcommittee that oversees the Postal Service, urged their colleagues to intervene.
There are ideas to save the Postal Service. Some suggest it could turn to banking or providing rural broadband internet connections. Others think mail carriers could offer essential government services to the people who live along their routes—a role they say mail carriers are uniquely suited to fill. Postal Service, which consistently ranks as their favorite government agency in both Pew and Gallup polls.
But will that be enough? That may depend on whether the Postal Service is given the opportunity to reinvent itself again. In the s, French aristocrat, historian, and diplomat Alexis de Tocqueville chronicled our new country in part by riding in a mail coach into Michigan Territory. The carriers dropped off the mail and sped on into the night. This was exactly the point: In forming the Post Office, the Founding Fathers had wanted a service that would bind together the scattered populous of the new United States.
It was, in other words, a tool of nationalism. The Post Office helped build an empire, quite literally. Though postal routes had been established in the colonial era—most notably under Benjamin Franklin, who had been a royal postmaster and later became the first U.
Postmaster General during the American Revolution—the system expanded under the new nation. By , these roads linked 28, post offices, where people sometimes waited in long lines to pick up their mail in an era before home delivery.
The growing need for contractors who could carry the mail across all those roads also spurred the growth of private businesses, including cross-country travel lines. The Post Office often gave mail contracts to stagecoach lines , rather than to faster and cheaper horseback riders, in order to promote the nascent passenger transportation network for the new nation.
Later, the Post Office did the same for private steamboats and railroads, even airlines —a practice that continues today. President George Washington also saw the Post Office as a way to cultivate committed American citizens. In its early years, the Post Office focused on delivering newspapers to keep Americans informed and connected.
By the late s, though, all those steamboats and railroads had created a problem. Suddenly, the Post Office was staring down an out-of-date business model and crippling finances. In the s, the nation decided to bail out its Post Office. After all, the nation was still expanding into the southern and western territories, and sustaining connections was critical.
Helped by lowered rates, letters soon became the bulk of postal business. Congress also set aside an annual appropriation in to support what it knew would be an operation in the red. The service was not done evolving. In , postmasters began to experiment with home delivery , instead of just carrying letters from post office to post office.
By the dawn of the 20 th century, far-flung farmers convinced the government that they deserved home delivery, too—and so letters were dropped into old cigar boxes and lard pails down country roads. USPS, in comparison, managed Neither company alone, nor the two together, have equivalent networks nor are they experienced in managing any of such scale.
There is no private company even slightly prepared to take on the workload the federal postal system requires. The Postal Service Act of made clear that the postal system was intended to benefit the public good.
This expectation has expanded over the years. Every person expects, and is entitled to, postal service, almost always delivered to a residence. In a backwater of Maine? Out in the prairies of Kansas? A citizen, and a business, can send and receive mail. One reason private companies lean on the USPS for delivery is the value of public service over profits.
Providing access at fixed prices across the country is expensive and none of the private carriers have tried to create such capabilities. As of last year, USPS managed Those had increased over the previous year by 1.
Related to the public mandate are the consumer interests in affordable service, no matter where one lives. Citizens have a right to mail access and many millions depend on it, whether to vote, pay bills, hear from relatives, obtain medicines, or receive packages from online purchases, a literal lifeline for many during this Covid pandemic.
A corporate outlook would likely increase rates based on inconvenience of operation, not convenience of service to the consumer.
Would they remain so?
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