Yes, the Postal Service needs an overhaul

But not 11 weeks before a crucial election

There’s no question that the business model of the U.S. Postal Service is deeply troubled. Mail volume has plunged by a third since 2006, customer visits to an actual USPS location are down by nearly a quarter since 2010, and it is losing gobs of money: an estimated $78 billion since 2007, says the Government Accountability Office.

Of course, it’s fair to mention that these gargantuan losses — the USPS reported an additional $2.2 billion in red ink over the three months ending in June — do not involve your taxes. The Postal Service notes that it receives “no tax dollars for operating expenses and relies on the sale of postage, products and services to fund its operations.”

Even so, a private sector company with numbers like this would have gone belly up by now. But the Postal Service, with roots dating to 1775 — older than America itself and, it says, the nation’s largest retail network (“bigger than McDonald’s, Starbucks and Walmart combined, domestically”) — chugs on.

That the USPS is in dire need of innovation and an overhaul is undeniable. But post offices in every congressional district provide steady paychecks, and lawmakers are reluctant to act. In 2014, for example, when Republicans controlled the House and Democrats the Senate, they shot down a proposal by the USPS itself to save $2 billion annually over a 10-year period by eliminating Saturday mail delivery.

Washington collision

It’s a typically byzantine Washington thing: The Postal Service has proposed changes, and even though it gets no taxpayer funds, it still needs congressional approval to become more efficient. Surely the shortest amount of time in politics is the interval between a proposal to close a post office and some member of Congress blowing a gasket over it.

This dynamic has collided with another truth: President Donald Trump is trailing presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, including in swing states that will decide the election. Trump, the most dishonest man to ever serve as U.S. president, apparently will do anything — lie, cheat, keep swinging a wrecking ball at the pillars of democracy — to keep power.

Trump fears that we the people might — egads! — vote for the candidate of our choice. He has decided that rigging the election by suppressing the vote is the only way he can get reelected so he and his family can continue lining their pockets on the taxpayers’ dime. And the best way to suppress the vote, he thinks, is to make it harder for the post office to process mail-in ballots.

We don’t even need to doubt Trump’s intentions here. He has admitted, on national TV, that he wants to prevent Americans from voting by mail. What’s ironic is that had Trump and Republican governors treated the pandemic as a health crisis, rather than a political crisis, he might not even be in this position.

Take Florida, for example. There are more than 570,000 confirmed coronavirus cases and nearly 9,500 deaths. Trump’s supporters, who skew older and were told for months that masks weren’t patriotic, may be scared to vote in person, as Trump advises. Here’s a solution: Stay safe and vote by mail. But according to Michael McDonald, a University of Florida professor who specializes in American elections, over 600,000 more Democrats in the Sunshine State have requested mail ballots than Republicans.

Paul Brandus

A self-made dilemma

So Trump has created his own problem. He and comrades like Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh have been ranting for months that mail-in balloting is a scam. But as Florida seniors keep seeing their neighbors dying, they might not want to risk voting in person, either. If Trump loses Florida and its 29 electoral votes, he has no path to reelection.

He is trying to cheat his way out of this self-made dilemma by making it harder for the post office to process ballots on time. You’ve no doubt seen reports of mail boxes being removed from around the country, and high-speed mail sorting machines being removed from post offices as well. Asked about this on Saturday, the president — associated with more than 20,000 false or misleading claims since taking office — said he didn’t know anything about it and told reporters to ask his new postmaster general, Louis DeJoy.

DeJoy recently told the Postal Service’s Board of Governors, “The notion that I would ever make decisions concerning the Postal Service at the direction of the president, or anyone else in the administration, is wholly off-base.”

But Trump has already spoken, and we can’t give DeJoy, his handpicked man, the benefit of the doubt. Yes, the Postal Service is a bloated money pit and needs to innovate. But with 11 weeks to go in an important election — perhaps the most crucial since 1860, when Abraham Lincoln squeaked in with less than 40% of the popular vote — this isn’t the time. If Trump wanted to overhaul the USPS, he could have done so in 2017-18, when Republicans controlled both the House and Senate. Instead, he has decided that now is the time? No. Give the Postal Service what is needed to get through this election and then let’s revisit reform. WANT TO COMMENT? Have Your Say at letters@usatoday.com, @usatodayopinion on Twitter and facebook.com/usatodayopinion. Comments are edited for length and clarity. Content submitted to USA TODAY may appear in print, digital or other forms. For letters, include name, address and phone number. Letters may be mailed to 7950 Jones Branch Drive, McLean, VA, 22108.