USPS and lawmakers push back against government reform proposal

USPS leaders and lawmakers have rejected some of the key proposals of the Trump administration’s plan for overhauling the postal service and alleviating its financial situation.

At a hearing chaired by Republican Senator Ron Johnson, David Williams, a USPS board member, accused the government task force of doing the bidding of USPS’ competitors through “discredited economic theory”.

In the past, the Trump administration has pushed for privatising USPS. However, the overall sentiment at the hearing was that it should remain a government agency.

Instead, points of disagreement included employees’ ability to negotiate over pay (not allowed in the rest of government), healthcare coverage, and the extent to which more lax rules about commercial mail—and scaling back the government protections that ensure lower rates—would lead to disproportionately higher costs for those in rural areas.

“Private shipping companies find value in using cost attribution models to weed out unprofitable customers,” Williams argued. “In contrast, we deliver to each American doorway.”

He said: “the role of a public infrastructure is not to maximize profit, but to maximize value to our American supply chains and to citizens, especially those in rural and underserved areas.”

Trump created a task force to investigate the postal service through executive order last year.

Source: Government Executive