The United States Postal Service (USPS) has been the most popular federal government agency since it was first included in the Gallup Poll on this subject matter in 2014. It was the only agency with an approval rating greater than 70 percent in the 2019 poll.
Yet, the USPS and members of Congress who were instrumental in enacting the Postal Service Reform Act of 2022 (Pub. Law No. 117-108) continue to receive heavy criticism from USPS competitors and their supporters, who attempted to undermine key provisions of the bill that codified integrated the delivery of mail and packages six days a week. Requiring the USPS to establish two delivery systems would have increased costs, slowed down delivery, and raised prices for consumers and businesses. The Postal Regulatory Commission found that creating separate networks would have cost more than $15 billion annually for a new fleet of vehicles and tens of thousands of new employees.
That outcome would have been bad for everyone except for the bottom line of the companies that sought an advantage through the legislative process that they could not otherwise achieve, and who would have been able to raise prices substantially by essentially eliminating the USPS as a competitor. While they are certainly entitled to continue to express their distress that their arguments were resoundingly rejected when the Postal Service Reform Act passed the House by a vote of 342-92 and the Senate by a vote of 79-19, the importance of the USPS to the economy and particularly small businesses must be reiterated.
The law improves the finances of the USPS and gives it more time to implement its 10-year Delivering for American (DFA) plan. The one-year progress report on the DFA noted that the USPS is on track to break even by 2030 instead of losing a projected $160 billion and that national service performance continues to improve to being on time 95 percent on the time across all services. Given the USPS’s continuous quarterly losses since 2006, it is simply not possible for the agency to turn its finances around on a dime (or in one quarter).
Nonetheless, the ongoing griping and nitpicking includes criticism of fiscally conservative members of Congress who voted for the bill even as the USPS continues to lose money. These critics fail to acknowledge the long-term benefits of the Postal Service Reform Act, including provisions that all fiscal conservatives should support, like keeping the USPS narrowly focused on its mission of delivering mail and packages and keeping it from undertaking financial services or other non-postal businesses already served by private industry.
They also overlook the increased transparency of service standards included in the final bill that were insisted upon by House Government Oversight and Reform Committee Ranking Member James Comer (R-Ky.). The law also strengthens oversight by the USPS Office of the Inspector General.
Like many bills that are enacted by Congress, more could have been done in the Postal Service Reform Act to improve USPS operations, including closing duplicative and unneeded facilities, reducing labor costs, and increasing work sharing. But insisting on those provisions to the detriment of making significant progress on USPS reforms would have made the agency’s finances even more precarious and likely that a taxpayer bailout would occur.
While the delivery of mail and packages to every household in America is often taken for granted, the significance of the USPS to small businesses, particularly in rural areas of the country, was highlighted during a Sept. 28, 2022, conference hosted by the Package Coalition and National Retail Federation.
The conference included comments from the owners of three small businesses: Pink Door Wreaths in…
Read More: USPS reform will help small businesses