Postmaster General Louis DeJoy isn’t going to win any popularity contests. He is slowing long-distance mail and instituting holiday surcharges of up to $5 a box, which is sure to provoke some grinchy news coverage. But as a reminder of why tough love is needed, the U.S. Postal Service said Wednesday that in fiscal 2021 it lost another $4.9 billion.
This is the USPS’s 15th straight annual loss, a running tab of $92 billion since 2007. It’s real money: President Biden’s infrastructure bill will spend $110 billion on roads and bridges. Mr. DeJoy is trying to do what Congress asked, which is to run the post office like a business, despite the many political mandates it must cope with. He’s raising prices and shifting mail from expensive planes to cheaper trucks. Last year’s loss was almost twice as big, $9.2 billion.