There are ways to make the Postal Service more profitable, if not profitable, and, over time, reduce the debt to an operationally manageable level. Unfortunately, outgoing Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, whom Trump appointed during his first term, has been resisting most of them. Instead, through his now much-maligned Delivering for America Plan, he’s been adding full-time permanent unionized staff and building monstrous facilities while bringing in-house much of the work its private sector partners were doing well.
That is precisely the wrong thing to do. The way to reduce the volume of red ink the USPS produces every year is to streamline the workforce—a government-wide mission for Trump, it seems—while having it focus on what it alone can do.
The problem, as always, is what is known as the last mile. Until Congress removes from the law the provision that requires the postal service to provide daily home delivery to just about every household in America, complete privatization will be of the table because it costs too much.
