White House rejects financial bailout for U.S. Postal Service

Huge revenue losses cited as pandemic slashes direct mail.

Through rain, sleet, hail, and even a pandemic, mail carriers serve every address in the United States, but the coronavirus crisis is shaking the foundation of the U.S. Postal Service in new ways.

The Postal Service’s financial troubles have worsened as the volume of the kind of mail that pays the agency’s bills — first-class and marketing mail — withers during the pandemic. The USPS needs an infusion of money, and President Trump has blocked potential emergency funding for the agency that employs around 600,000 workers, repeating instead the false claim that higher rates for Internet shipping companies Amazon, FedEx and UPS would right the service’s budget.

Trump threatened to veto the $2.2 trillion Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act if the legislation contained any money directed to bail out the postal agency, according to a senior Trump administration official and congressional official. “We told them very clearly that the president was not going to sign the bill if (money for the Postal Service) was in it,” the Trump administration official said. Instead, Sens. Gary Peters, D-Mich., and Ron Johnson, R-Wis., added a last-minute $10 billion Treasury Department loan to the CARES Act to keep the agency on firmer ground through the spring of 2020, according to a Democratic committee aide.

Without the loan, which awaits approval by the Treasury Department, USPS would be “financially illiquid” by Sept. 30, according to estimates provided to lawmakers. Postmaster General Megan Brennan asked Thursday for another $50 billion — $25 billion to offset lost revenue from declining mail volume amid the pandemic and $25 billion for “modernization” — plus another $25 billion Treasury loan and a mechanism to pay down $14 billion in existing public debt.