The Trump administration is proposing to restructure the U.S. Postal Service. President Donald Trump said the agency would have more flexibility if it were operated as a private agency, according to …
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The Trump administration is proposing to restructure the U.S. Postal Service. President Donald Trump said the agency would have more flexibility if it were operated as a private agency, according to Sen. Claire McCaskill, who opposes the Trump plan.
If it went private the rural areas would be hit the hardest. Privatization would cut services to rural areas — no doubt about it. When the postal service was created, the goal was to serve all areas. The problem is that it is expensive to do that. To make ends meet, a private postal service would have to cut expenses, eliminate even more post offices, deliveries would suffer, and consumers and companies would pay more for services. The U.S. Postal Service has made adjustments to try to live within its budgets and services have been cut, but it’s still losing money year after year.
Congress has given only limited attention to the postal service, which is underfunded. Sen. McCaskill has warned about what privatization would probably bring — increased costs, fewer mail delivery days and chiefly, less service to rural areas. For community newspapers, it could seriously harm them. They depend on the post office for delivery.
The postal service has been seeking more flexibility in increasing prices and the easing of some of the burdens of workers’ retirement benefits.
Sen. McCaskill said a Trump business model in reality would result in rural areas facing the same situation they did to get electricity — “the same reality that faces rural communities when they need to get broadband.”
Sen. McCaskill added that there is “no way a privatization model would deliver the same level of service to rural America as they currently receive.”
Why doesn’t Congress do something about the postal service? Earlier this year Sen. McCaskill joined a bipartisan group of senators to introduce a comprehensive bill she says will put the postal service on firm financial footing, improve performance in rural communities and allow for the development of new products and services.
We await a decision by Congress on this bill!
