The United States Postal Service (USPS) is allowing itself to be distracted from its core mission of mail and package delivery. As a result, it is losing billions of dollars in the process, and now the USPS is asking for financial relief. It is a masterclass in bureaucratic waste, and American taxpayers are the ones being handed the invoice.
During a recent Senate subcommittee hearing, Chairman Rand Paul cut straight to the heart of the crisis. “The Postal Service is once again telling Congress that it’s out of money, running out of money, and once again, the answer seems to be, ‘Send the bill to the taxpayer. Just give us some more money,’” Paul observed. But before asking Congress for additional relief, the agency should demonstrate that it can protect the revenue it is already supposed to collect.
Under its current restructuring plan, the USPS has made the confounding decision to claw back work that it previously outsourced to efficient private-sector shipping and logistics companies. For example, the Postal Service has sought to create its own payment and software platforms, despite more secure and efficient technology already existing in the private sector. This has resulted in the Postal Service leaving billions of dollars on the table because of fraud, counterfeit labels, and weak payment controls due to its own technological failures.
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