How to Fail to Deliver the Mail Without Really Trying

The United States Postal Service (USPS) is not celebrating its 250th anniversary with the rest of America because it was founded as the U.S. Post Office on July 26, 1775, at the Second Continental Congress, making it the second oldest federal agency or department.  The national postal system was formalized in the Constitution in Article 1, Section 8, which grants Congress the power “To establish Post Offices and post Roads.”  In Federalist 43, James Madison wrote, “The power of establishing post roads must, in every view, be a harmless power, and may, perhaps, by judicious management, become productive of great public conveniency (emphasis added).”  And when the Post Office became the independent U.S. Postal Service in 1970, it was supposed to cover its costs through the sale of postage and related products.

After 251 years and gaining its “independence,” it would be reasonable for businesses, consumers, ratepayers, and taxpayers to expect the USPS to be a “harmless power,” operate efficiently and effectively under “judicious management,” and at least break even.

Instead, the USPS has failed to turn a profit in every fiscal year since 2007, and its financial viability has been on the Government Accountability Office’s (GAO) High-Risk List since 2009.  GAO has long called the USPS business model “unsustainable” yet the agency persists in trying to fix its problem by pursuing the fatally flawed Delivering for American (DFA) plan.

Indeed, USPS management was far from judicious when it ignored the warnings about the DFA plan from the Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC), which oversees its operations.  The USPS continues to pursue the wrong answers, including Postmaster General David Steiner’s request to at least double the agency’s $15 billion line of credit from the U.S. Treasury during his March 17, 2026, appearance before the House Government Operations Subcommittee.

The PRC’s objections to the USPS’s plans include a July 20, 2021, Advisory Opinion on service changes to First-Class Mail and periodicals in which it found no evidence or “supporting market research” that “supports the Postal Service’s claims regarding customer satisfaction, such as consistent customer preferences for reliable delivery over fast delivery.”

In its January 31, 2025, Advisory Opinion on changes made by the DFA in operations and service standards, the PRC found that the USPS “is irreversibly changing its network without laying a foundation for success.”  The financial projections for cost savings were “overly optimistic” and “unsubstantiated” and unlikely to improve its finances.  The PRC further excoriated the DFA by finding that the USPS relied on “defective modeling” and “unclear timeframes for rollout of the changes” and “fails to fully consider the significant, negative impact of these changes on rural communities across the country.”  The PRC reiterated these concerns in its fiscal year (FY) 2025 Annual Report to the President and Congress.

The USPS Office of Inspector General (IG) has weighed in on the DFA as well.  In its January 30, 2026, Oversight of the DFA Plan – Volume 3 report, the IG found that despite “meaningful investments in infrastructure, fleet modernization, and pricing reforms, service performance has been inconsistent, and financial outcomes have fallen short of break-even targets.”

Yet, instead of reducing costs to match its declining revenue, the USPS is accelerating DFA spending with projected cash outlays of $4.6 billion in FY 2026.  There are no outcomes tied to these expenditures, like increased efficiency, improved service performance, or long-term cost reduction.  Doubling down on a flawed plan will make matters worse, especially as the USPS continues to express its desire to control end-to-end processes and products rather than leveraging successful public private partnerships that have proven to be more efficient and less costly.

As President Trump’s Anti-Fraud Task Force continues to examine wasteful spending across the government it should heed the USPS IG’s April 8, 2026, report on counterfeit labels and the expenditure of hundreds of millions of dollars annually on consulting firms to build IT solutions that are readily available in the commercial marketplace.

The USPS has a simple mission that it continues to fail to achieve in a “harmless” and “judicious” manner.  Congress must demand an explanation of why the USPS keeps trying to succeed with a flawed plan and hold its leadership accountable to turn its finances around for the sake of businesses, consumers, and taxpayers.