President-elect Donald Trump is toying with the idea of nationalizing the USPS, pivoting its mission from getting packages where they need to go to getting money into the pockets of its potential shareholders.
Per the Washington Post:
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.
Trump has discussed his desire to overhaul the Postal Service at his Mar-a-Lago estate with Howard Lutnick, his pick for commerce secretary and the co-chair of his presidential transition, the people said. Earlier this month, Trump also convened a group of transition officials to ask for their views on privatizing the agency, one of the people said.
Told of the mail agency's annual financial losses, Trump said the government should not subsidize the organization, the people said. The people spoke on the condition of anonymity to reflect private conversations.
Trump's specific plans for overhauling the Postal Service were not immediately clear. But he feuded with the nation's mail carrier as president in 2019, trying to force it to hand over key functions — including rate-setting, personnel decisions, labor relations and managing relationships with its largest clients — to the Treasury Department.
You may remember that previous spat with the Postal Service, wherein Trump called it a 'joke' and admonished it for not making enough money, seemingly missing the word "service" in its name. It's a service – it costs money, it's not supposed to make it. Running it like a for-profit company is a sure way to tank its efficiency and make it infinitely less convenient for the everyday citizen, not to mention putting thousands out of work – but hey, as long as the DOGE gets to make its cuts, right?
