While President Biden is appointing new members to the board that oversees the US Postal Service, Trump's agent of the agency's destruction is hard at work trying to lock a decade-long plan into place that will effectively end the era of mail in America for 90% of the country.
Postmaster General Louis DeJoy will unveil the largest rollback of consumer mail services in a generation as part of his 10-year plan for the U.S. Postal Service, according to two people briefed on the proposal, including longer first-class delivery windows, reduced post office hours and higher postage prices.
The announcement set for Tuesday is part of DeJoy’s strategic vision for the agency, one that has left postal advocates wary of any changes that could further diminish operations. Mailing industry experts have warned that substantial service cuts could drive away business and worsen the Postal Service’s already battered balance sheet.
DeJoy is expected to emphasize the need for austerity to ensure more consistent delivery and rein in billions of dollars in financial losses, according to the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive conversations. The agency is weighed down by $188.4 billion in liabilities, and DeJoy told a House panel last month that he expects the USPS to lose $160 billion over the next 10 years.
The plan, which he told the panel was eight months in the making, is meant to reset expectations for the Postal Service and its place in the express-shipping market. It’s couched in the notion that the historically high package volumes of the pandemic era will persist, and reorients the agency around consumers who don’t use the mail service for letters, advertisements or business transactions as much as they once did.
“Does it make a difference if it’s an extra day to get a letter?” DeJoy told the House Oversight and Reform Committee in February. “Because something has to change. We cannot keep doing the same thing we’re doing.”
DeJoy will roll out his plan as Democrats have renewed calls for his ouster and the removal of the agency’s governing board, which backs him and the proposals. More than 50 House Democrats last week asked President Biden to fire the board’s six sitting members for cause — citing “gross mismanagement,” “self-inflicted” nationwide mail delays and “rampant conflicts of interest” — and to allow a new slate of Biden nominees to consider DeJoy’s fitness for office.
Biden already has nominated two Democrats and a voting rights advocate to fill three of four vacancies (board Chairman Ron Bloom, a Democrat, is serving in a one-year holdover term) on the board of governors. If confirmed by the Senate, Democrats and Biden appointees would hold a 5-to-4 majority with the votes to remove DeJoy, if desired.
Biden cannot fire DeJoy; postal operations are purposefully insulated from the presidency and Congress to prevent politicians from tinkering with the mail system for political gain. The postmaster general answers only to the board of governors. Bloom told the House panel in February that the board “believes the postmaster general in very difficult circumstances is doing a good job.”
Most of DeJoy’s changes will not face regulatory road blocks. The postmaster general unilaterally controls operating hours at post offices, and the board of governors appears to back DeJoy’s changes to delivery times. Bloom will join DeJoy on a webinar Tuesday to announce the policies.
Remember two things:
One, President Biden may not be able to get America out of this. He can only appoint governors and he'll need Senate confirmation to do it.
Two, you can personally thank Bernie Sanders for getting us into this mess. By making the perfect the enemy of the good, he blocked President Obama's appointments to the Postal Board of Governors in 2016, allowing Donald Trump to later appoint all the governors himself with Mitch McConnell's help.
We could have saved the Post Office. There's a coin-flip chance that it doesn't make it through the decade without the mail being permanently privatized.
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