Trump Vs. The Postal Service: Behind The Movement To #SaveTheUSPS

Topline: Following a Washington Post report on Saturday that President Donald Trump rejected a bailout for the struggling U.S. Postal Service, supporters of the independent agency and its 600,000 employees have taken to social media to encourage lawmakers to provide aid and citizens to buy stamps.

• This is the latest confrontation in Trump’s fight against the Postal Service; he accused them in 2018 of giving Amazon
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  (and his nemesis Jeff Bezos) a sweetheart deal and his administration issued recommendations later that year that the agency should change its pricing system for non-essential deliveries and work with private-sector partners to solve its financial problems.
• The $2 trillion CARES Act that passed in March originally contained a $13 billion grant for the USPS, according to the Post, but a senior White House official said that the president would not sign a bill that provided aid to the agency.
• After Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin made that clear to lawmakers, Sens. Ron Johnson, R-Wisconsin, and Gary Peters, D-Michigan managed to squeeze in a $10 billion loan to the Postal Service that will have to be repaid.
• The loan will likely not be enough; Postmaster General Megan Brennan told lawmakers on Thursday that the agency may run out of cash by September thanks to a $13 billion loss in revenue this year.
• Fearing that the Postal Service’s demise would make voting more difficult and destroy the livelihood of its workers, supporters of the agency got hashtags including #SaveTheUSPS and #BuyStamps were trending over thee weekend.
• People shared photos of their neighborhood mail workers and of the novelty stamps they bought to bolster the USPS.
• Democratic lawmakers have become increasingly vocal about providing stimulus support for the agency.

Key background: This is not the start of the USPS’ troubles. Although the Postal Service is allowed to act as a monopoly, it does not receive tax dollars and is self-funded through postage. It has substantial debt resulting from the requirement that it pre-fund retiree health benefits. Still, coronavirus is a fresh new challenge that could reduce delivery volume by 60%. 

Big number: $89 billion. That is how much the USPS says it needs to cover its coronavirus shortfall, according to the New York Times
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. Trump has argued that the agency could raise the money itself by increasing the price to deliver packages for Amazon and other big online retailers.

What to watch for: The movement is becoming increasingly tied up with the push for Americans to vote by mail following the chaos of the Wisconsin primary last week. While Democrats have been urging greater capacity for mail-in voting, arguing that in-person voting could increase the spread of the virus and disenfranchise those most vulnerable to serious complications from it, Republicans (including Trump) have argued that widespread mail-in voting would increase the risk of fraud. It’s a fight that is likely to escalate as the presidential election approaches.

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