How to fix the US Postal Service
The following editorial appeared in The Virginian-pilot:
The reform bill that finally won congressional approval this month won’t fix all that’s wrong with the U.S. Postal Service, but it’s a much-needed beginning. President Joe Biden’s signature will start the process of overhauling the USPS’S finances so that it can survive and adapt to changing times.
The bill is the result of hard work and compromise that eventually won broad support among both Republicans and Democrats. Such bipartisan agreement is rare these days, but saving the venerable USPS is worth the effort.
The legislation takes strong action needed to correct the USPS’S severe financial problems. It eliminates the unwise requirement that the postal service prefund its retirees’ health benefits. It also requires Postal Service retirees to enroll in Medicare when they become eligible.
Those changes are essential. The mandate to pre-fund retirees’ health care costs was put in place in 2006, when the postal service was still profitable. But since then, the USPS has been handling less mail each year, and losing more and more money. In 2020, the postal service lost $9.2 billion. Estimates suggest that scrapping this onerous mandate would save about $27 billion over 10 years.
The requirement that retirees enroll in Medicare, as most other Americans do, also will be a big help. Currently, about a fourth of retired postal workers do not sign up for Medicare. Estimates are that requiring all of them to enroll will save about $22.6 billion in premiums over 10 years.
Another important provision would provide a way to monitor the postal service’s performance by setting up an online dashboard with data on delivery times, both locally and nationally.
The bill also mandates at least six days of postal service a week. And, in what could prove to be an important change, the bill allows post offices, often strategically located in communities, to offer non-postal services such as hunting and fishing licenses.
For years, the postal service has struggled to adapt to changes brought by the rise of the internet and other technology and the decline of communication on paper. Since 1971, the USPS has been operating as an independent agency, funded by the money it raises by selling stamps and services rather than annual appropriations of taxpayer dollars.
That worked for decades, but not now. There are arguments over whether the agency is supposed to be a business or a public service. Postmaster General Louis Dejoy, a Trump administration appointee, believed the former, imposing various cost-cutting measures that have slowed and disrupted the mail, all the while raising rates.
If the bottom line were all that mattered, the Postal Service would likely go out of business eventually. But financial considerations, while important, are secondary. The postal service continues to be essential in the lives of many Americans — among them, those who depend on it to pay their bills, receive prescription drugs and send packages to remote places, including people in the military.
Poor people and people who live in rural areas suffer most when postal services are cut back and become harder to access. The postal service is supposed to serve all Americans, including those who use urban mailboxes and small, rural post offices, and those who live in areas that commercial delivery services don’t serve.
Recent events during these pandemic years also should remind us of the vital role the postal service plays in our democracy. Voting by mail was essential in the 2020 election.
The Postal Service Reform Act of 2022 won’t solve all the agency’s problems. In the process of reaching compromise, lawmakers removed several more contentious provisions.
But there is every indication this bill will help fight off insolvency and avoid the possibility the USPS would run out of money by 2023. It puts the postal service back on reliable financial footing.
Reformers should pursue long-term changes, bringing creative solutions to bear on these problems, but this was an important step and should be celebrated.