The United States Postal Service (USPS) has been the subject of a significant amount of justifiable criticism for many years. The agency has been on the Government Accountability Office’s High-Risk List since 2009 due to its unsustainable business model and financial condition. There have been 15 consecutive years of net losses since 2007, totaling $91.2 billion.
Despite this long period of financial distress, there may be hope on the horizon for improvements in service, efficiency, accountability, and transparency, along with preventing a taxpayer bailout, if Congress passes H.R. 3076, the Postal Service Reform Act of 2021. The legislation is not perfect, and it does not include several provisions that fiscal conservatives have supported for many years, including reducing labor costs, closing excess and underutilized facilities, and increasing the use of work sharing and other more efficient private sector resources. But the lack of inclusion of these longstanding objectives is not sufficient reason for them to oppose the legislation.