Trump considering United States Postal Service privatization: report

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: Salon

Published December 14, 2024 2:27PM (EST)


Donald Trump is mulling privatization for the United States Postal Service, according to insiders who spoke to the Washington Post. Sources who spoke to the Post claim the president-elect has eagerly discussed gutting one of the federal government’s oldest agencies, going so far as to gather transition team perspectives on privatizing the agency earlier this month.

Trump discussed his plans to overhaul and the department with Cabinet nominee Howard Lutnick at Mar-a-Lago, per the Post. He’s put forward a planned Department of Government Efficiency, headed by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, that would have a wide mandate to slash department budgets.

Trump said the federal government should not step in to subsidize the service’s losses – which totaled $9.5 billion last fiscal year – a move that could potentially destroy the agency tasked with delivering mail to every American.

Trump appointee and Postmaster General Louis DeJoy defended the agency’s lack of profitability on Tuesday in a heated congressional oversight hearing, explaining to Rep. Rich McCormick, R-Ga., that the Post Office provided an essential service before resorting to covering his ears. “This Congress is responsible for the fall of the Postal Service. I am trying to fix the Postal Service,” DeJoy told McCormick.

Read more: https://www.salon.com/2024/12/14/considering-united-states-postal-privatization-report/

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The Postal Service IS a "government function". The 1792 Postal Service Act was one of the earliest laws enacted post-Constitution because you had every state (at the time) with a cacophony of postal operations and their own postage.

Article I

(snip)

Section 8.

The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

(snip)

To establish post offices and post roads;

https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/articlei

The government DOESN'T "subsidize" USPS through tax dollars per law -

H.R.17070 - Postal Reorganization Act

In 2006, Congress and Shrub implemented a "pre-funding" mandate that added massive amounts of debt to the organization -

H.R.6407 - Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act (2006)

In 2022, Congress under Democrats killed the retiree healthcare "pre-funding" requirement and provided some money to close a funding gap over 10 years that helped to financially burden the USPS -

H.R.3076 - Postal Service Reform Act of 2022

[jgmiller]

1. Given that only Congress can do this I don't think there is much to worry about

There is pretty much zero chance that it would pass the House because some GOP members would worry more about their electoral chances if they did and even if it did someone would block it in the Senate. In this respect Trump is like every other politician he will give it lip service but doesn't really care if anything happens.

[ZonkerHarris]

4. except Republican Quislings control Congress. They follow orders from this asshole.

[Bengus81]

17. Two vote difference in the House. I doubt that every Republican would vote

to privatize the USPS and have stamps that cost $5.00.

[ZonkerHarris]

20. Please list the potential GOP House members who will vote against Trump's idiocy. They are afraid of their violent base.

[Bengus81]

21. Not all of them are willing to see democracy die. And.........

They vote to end the ACA,Social Security and Medicare and they think they don't have to worry about people coming after them? That totals around 112 million people.

[ZonkerHarris]

22. I think you are underestimating our opponents.

[Karasu]

9. 1. This party/administration doesn't care about norms. 2. The GOP controls the entire fucking government.

I wouldn't rule it out at all.

[Galraedia]

2. That pre-funding requirement wasn't even going towards retirees, it was was going into the US Treasury

Taxpayers don't even fund the US Postal Service, so there's nothing to cut. This is just an attempt by republicans to allow Trump's rich donors to profit off what the USPS does for far less.

[FakeNoose]

3. The US Postal Service will never earn a "profit" - NEVER!

That's not why it was created, and it has existed longer than the f**king Repuke Party.
They need to shut up about this NOW!



Thank you BRDS!

[paleotn]

7. Some people just don't get the commons do they.

There are some parts of a civilized society that are off limits to the money grubbers. USPS being one. What is and isn't is at the heart of our century plus argument with Repukes. We think healthcare should be off the table for profiteering parasites They think even our military should go all invade, pillage and profit like goddamn Roman legions.

[Evolve Dammit]

5. They want to privatize everything. The attack on USPS has been 20 years in the making. And it has taken a toll.

[paleotn]

6. As you stated so well, DeJoy is right on one thing. Congress is responsible for the fall of the USPS.

.. and even Democrats have failed to reverse it.

The rest is just Donny spewing nonsense again about things he doesn't understand.

[RedWhiteBlueIsRacist]

8. Imagine a MAGA outfit controlling mail-in ballots!

[GemDigger]

10. I believe that was his plan back when he put

DeJoy in in the first place. To do it would have taken more than 4 years but less than 12. Biden put a wrench in the plans timeline and now with pres pissant back, he will have the time that is needed to finish destroying the USPS.

[NameAlreadyTaken]

11. Why would they want it, if it loses so much money?

[GemDigger]

12. Before postmaster

he was the CEO of a logistics and freight company so he may benefit quite nicely from its destruction.
Because prez pissant wants to destroy everything he touches what better person to put in place to do it.

[NameAlreadyTaken]

13. True... but XPO will never deliver mail to your mailbox

[cstanleytech]

14. I never thought I'd agree with DeJoy partially but It's actually congressional Republicans who caused it.

[Roy Rolling]

15. Truck Fump

His name is poison. No more stories of his escapades like he’s Willy Wonka. Advertising around such shit stories is why we’re in the mess we’re in.

Fuck traitorous advertisers, turning a profit next to the murder of American democracy.

[liberal N proud]

16. It's all about some cronies get rich

The USPS bites into the entire republican belief in everything must be for profit.

[Martin68]

18. Right wing ultra-capitalists have been trying to privatize the USPS since art at least the George W. Bush

administration. the reason they have always failed is that only a government agency can serve rural areas that a private company could not profitably serve. My parents (Fox News conservatives) lived in a rural Virginia location where the Bush administration tried to close the local post office. The uproar was intense - and these were dyed in the wool Republican voters. Rural areas that rely on the government's postal service tend to be conservative.

[TexasBushwhacker]

19. No one wants to handle letters

You can privatize packages and that business will be gobbled up by FedEx and UPS. But NOBODY wants to handle stamped mail. NOBODY!!!

[LetMyPeopleVote]

23. In Trump's second term, will USPS privatization be on the table?

New reporting suggests the president-elect has expressed "a keen interest" in privatizing the U.S. Postal Service once he returns to the White House.
https://bsky.app/profile/mynewsfeed.link/post/3ldgnu6kxzw2g

In Trump’s second term, will USPS privatization be on the table?: New reporting suggests the president-elect has expressed "a keen interest" in privatizing the U.S. Postal Service once he returns to the White House

Link to tweet

UPDATE (December 16, 2024, 12:31 p.m. ET): Shortly after this report was published, Donald Trump publicly confirmed that he is, in fact, considering privatizing the U.S. Postal Service.

The United States Constitution doesn’t go into a lot of detail about specific benefits the federal government is supposed to provide to the citizenry — the document tends to rely on generalities such as promoting “the general welfare” — but Article I, Section 8 explicitly authorizes officials to “establish post offices.”

In other words, as long as there’s been a United States government, a domestic mail system has been a pillar of the American experience. There is, however, fresh reason to be concerned about that system’s future. The Washington Post reported:

President-elect Donald Trump has expressed a keen interest in privatizing the U.S. Postal Service in recent weeks, three people with knowledge of the matter said, a move that could shake up consumer shipping and business supply chains and push hundreds of thousands of federal workers out of the government.[/blockquote]

According to the Post’s reporting, which has not been independently verified by MSNBC or NBC News, the Republican has broached the subject of a Postal Service “overhaul” with several members of his team, including Howard Lutnick, his choice for commerce secretary and the co-chair of his presidential transition......

Asked about his apparent USPS disdain during a White House press briefing, Trump offered a long, meandering, hard-to-follow diatribe, in which he seemed to argue that USPS finances would be fine if it simply imposed higher rates on Amazon.com (a company Trump disliked because its owner, Jeff Bezos, also owns The Washington Post, which he also disliked).

His complaints were quickly discredited, though his scorn for the Postal Service apparently lingers.

In theory, it’s easy to imagine members of Congress having a problem with privatization plans, but in practice, let’s not forget that many congressional Republicans are on record supporting privatizing the USPS out of existence. In other words, if Trump is serious about such a plan, he might not face too much resistance on Capitol Hill, at least among GOP officials.