One Dem clutches pearls after US Postal Service aligns with DOGE to remedy ‘broken business model,’ exit 10,000 workers

U.S. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy enraged Democrats Thursday by revealing he has struck a deal with Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency to tackle some of the inefficiencies that have left the Postal Service a financially nonviable organization with a “broken business model” that “experienced close to $100 billion in losses and was projected to lose another $200 billion.”

DeJoy, who was appointed by President Donald Trump during his first term in office,
noted in a letter to congressional lawmakers that the USPS has been undergoing a transformation from a “battered government bureaucracy with substantial financial losses destined for collapse” to a functional and financially sound organization.

The USPS, an organization with 635,000 employees,
reported a net loss of $9.5 billion in fiscal year 2024 and and a net loss of $6.5 billion in 2023. The organization warned last year that unless it continued to cut costs or received a taxpayer-funded bailout, it was headed for extinction.

DeJoy underscored in his letter that “the rescue activities and pace of change required to transform this organization far exceeds most normal turnaround efforts. The scale of our daily work is unprecedented and extraordinary, our infrastructure was greatly deteriorated due to years of underinvestment, and our operating practices were for a postal environment of long ago that were never adjusted as the times and our business changed.”

The USPS has managed to cut some costs in recent years, in part by renegotiating air and ground transportation contracts, which saved the service $10 billion annually; by reducing the headquarters workforce by 20%, which saved the service over $200 million annually; and by canning 30,000 workers since 2021. These and other changes helped pave the way for the USPS to turn a profit of nearly $1 billion in its most recent quarter — its first time in the black since the pandemic.

Despite these successes, DeJoy indicated that he has accepted additional help from the DOGE to go the distance.

‘We should privatize everything we possibly can.’

“I signed an agreement with the General Service Administration and DOGE representatives to assist us in identifying further efficiencies,” wrote DeJoy. “This is an effort aligned with our efforts, as while we have accomplished a great deal, there is much more to be done. We are happy to have others to assist us in our worthwhile cause.”

In addition to exiting 10,000 workers over the next 30 days through a voluntary early retirement program, DeJoy highlighted a number of issues that, if resolved with the help of the DOGE, could save the USPS billions of dollars. Among the issues identified were the:

• “mismanagement of our self-funded retirement assets and the actuarial miscalculations of our retirement obligations,” which apparently result in several billions of dollars of unnecessary additional charges each year;
• mismanagement of the postal workers’ compensation program, which apparently results in roughly $400 million in excessive annual charges;
• estimated $6 billion to $11 billion cost of unfunded mandates imposed on the service by legislation; and
• “burdensome regulatory requirements restricting normal business practice” and the Postal Regulatory Commission, which DeJoy said was an “unnecessary agency that has inflicted over $50 billion in damage to the Postal Service” and stands “in the way of the timely and necessary changes required to succeed as a self-funded enterprise in a competitive environment.”

“The DOGE team was gracious enough to ask for the big problems that they can help us with,” added DeJoy.

The postmaster requested that lawmakers get on board and engage with the USPS and the DOGE representatives “that need to adapt to the critically necessary changes involved and to correct for the deficiencies of the past that can and must be corrected.”

The prospect that the DOGE will work with the Postal Service to ensure it not only survives but thrives has angered a solitary Democrat who figured this was the proverbial hill he would die on.

Rep. Gerald Connolly (D-Va.), ranking member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform,
stated, “The only thing worse for the Postal Service than DeJoy’s ‘Delivering for America’ plan is turning the service over to Elon Musk and DOGE so they can undermine it, privatize it, and then profit off Americans’ loss.”

Although there was no explicit mention of privatization in DeJoy’s letter, Connolly might have been referencing Musk’s
suggestion last week that “we should privatize everything we possibly can,” including the post office.

“This capitulation will have catastrophic consequences for all Americans — especially those in rural and hard to reach areas — who rely on the Postal Service every day to deliver mail, medications, ballots, and more,” added Connolly.

Brian Renfroe, president of the National Association of Letter Carriers, indicated that he was aware of the agreement between the USPS, the GSA, and the DOGE, stating, “We will continue closely monitoring the situation and will fight like hell against any attack on the rights and privacy of NALC members.”

Renfroe
noted, however, that the policy changes the postmaster proposed in his letter “are needed to improve the Postal Service’s financial viability,” adding the NALC welcomes “anyone’s help who can influence Congress and the Administration to finally enact them.”

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