President-elect Donald Trump had a conversation in which he is considering a massive change for the United States Postal Service, and it’s one the vast majority of the American public will love. One of the top priorities of his presidential campaign was slicing and dicing the federal government’s budget so that we won’t be nickled and dimed to death. There are plenty of ways to accomplish this goal, one being the privatization of the USPS, which is what Trump is mulling over according to a post that was published by The Washington Post this past weekend.
Three individuals who reportedly have knowledge of the conversations Trump has been having about taking this course of action spoke with the Post and said that the president-elect had a meeting with his pick for Commerce Secretary, Howard Lutnick, where they chit-chatted about the privatization of the USPS. The agency has, by and large, funded itself, however in 2022, the federal government handed it $50 billion in taxpayer dollars as it was struggling to pull in revenue.
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Trump reportedly told his transition officials that the USPS should not be subsidized by the federal government after he was informed of the agency’s annual losses. The USPS recorded a net loss of $9.5 billion in fiscal year 2024 after losing $6.5 billion in 2023. The president-elect has floated the idea of privatizing the USPS in the past. In 2018, the Trump administration pushed for privatizing the agency, but the proposal was met with Congressional disapproval. The Trump administration argued that the USPS has “extremely high fixed costs,” adding that it “can no longer support the obligations” of “visit[ing] over 150 million addresses six days per week.”
Trump has labeled the USPS “a joke” and Amazon’s “Delivery Boy.” Amazon extensively uses the USPS for “last mile” deliveries between fulfillment centers, homes, and businesses. Opposition to Trump’s idea for the USPS could arise over its “universal obligation” that requires it to carry mail and packages to the most rural parts of the country in a timely manner. A USPS spokesman told the Post in a statement that it is following a 10-year modernization plan that includes reducing spending and work hours while keeping its commitments.
“The United States Postal Service is already engaged in an initiative to ensure that we can provide our customers with a high level of service to every delivery address in the nation at least 6-days-a-week in an efficient and financially sustainable fashion as required by law,” the statement went on to say.
The USPS could find themselves in the crosshairs of the Department of Government Efficiency, otherwise known as DOGE, that is set to be led by SpaceX owner Elon Musk and former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy. Speaking about DOGE’s mission, the president-elect said the agency will “dismantle Government Bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal Agencies,” along with finding ways to give the government an “entrepreneurial approach.”
Another agency that’s on the chopping block is the Department of Education. Eliminating this behemoth would provide state and local governments with much more power over their own education programs. Whenever something like this is de-centralized, it’s a win for the American people.
“You give them to so many different states, Indiana, they’re dying to do it,” he remarked during the 2024 campaign. “They can do it for less than half [the funding], and you will have those states competing with the best countries.”