WASHINGTON — The U.S. Postal Service was created in 1775 and became an independent government agency in 1970. But its status could change with President Donald Trump's proposal. He is calling for merging the Postal Service into the Department of Commerce and his ally, Elon Musk, says it should be privatized.
"We want to have a Post Office that works well and doesn't lose massive amounts of money,” Trump said recently.
Constitutional scholar Howard Schweber said any change in the status of the Postal Service would require congressional approval, but that wouldn’t necessarily stop the President from trying to do it unilaterally through an executive order.
“If Trump tries to redesign the post office, I don’t think Congress would resist that,” said Schweber, whose affiliate faculty at the University of Wisconsin Law School. “It would go to court. As I say, the outcome is wildly uncertain.”
In 2023, the Postal Service had $79 billion in revenue and $6.5 billion in losses. Congress only provided about $50 million in subsidies that year.
One reason for the losses is the Postal Service delivers mail to every community in the country, no matter how small or remote. Experts say requiring the Postal Service to cut its losses or turn a profit likely would force a reduction in services.
“There’s no question that the places where it’s most needed, because it’s most difficult to receive mail in other ways, are the places that would suffer the most directly,” Schweber said.
Brian Renfroe, the national president of the National Association of Letter Carriers, echoed Schweber’s comments.
“If you live in Madison, chances are that you would continue to have access to—maybe not exactly the same, maybe a little more expensive—but you would have access to delivery,” he said. “If you live really outside of those areas, and any type of rural area… there would either be no access to delivery, or if there was access to delivery, it would inevitably be more expensive.”
The NALC was founded in Milwaukee in 1889 and represents nearly 300,000 active and retired letter carriers. The union opposes a merger or privatization.
“We deliver to 160 million-plus addresses every single day, six days a week, same cost to everyone, no matter where they live, and that is a very important piece for us to maintain,” Renfroe said. “We fully believe that any form of privatization would inevitably result in a tax and a degradation on that universal service standard that would damage the network that is such a really important part of our country.”
While Renfroe acknowledged that the Postal Service has problems that need to be addressed, he said Congress could make investments in infrastructure and modernization to bolster performance.
The debate over the postal service’s future largely falls along party lines in Wisconsin.
“Privatization is a really bad idea,” said Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Madison.
While Rep. Scott Fitzgerald, R-Juneau, said he doesn’t know if members of Congress have been briefed beyond the President’s comments, he said he’s “all eyes and ears” when it comes to new ideas.
“There’s a lot of corporations within the Fifth Congressional in Wisconsin that utilize the Postal Service greatly, and a lot of it is linked either to our printing industry connections or to the paper industry,” he said. “As a result of that, we have a manufacturer in Hartford, Wisconsin, that actually manufactures the blue mailboxes that you see across the entire country. So I have had a lot of interaction with the Postal Service. I mean, I think there’s always room for improvements, and would love to hear if there was a more elaborate plan to address some of those things.”
