The origins of the United States Postal Service stretch back to before the signing of the Declaration of Independence. On July 26, 1775, members of the Second Continental Congress created the Post Office Department, the predecessor of the United States Postal Service. The Founding Fathers believed that the Post Office would help promote nationalism and unite the colonists by encouraging the exchange of news, ideas, and opinions through the mail.
On July 26, 1775, the Second Continental Congress appointed Benjamin Franklin to be the first Postmaster General. Franklin was an ideal candidate for the role because he had previously served under the British Crown as joint Postmaster General for the American colonies. The Crown eventually dismissed Franklin from his role as Postmaster General in 1774 for “actions sympathetic to the cause of the colonies.”
As Postmaster General for the U.S, Franklin, and his immediate successors, played a very important role in the Revolutionary War by ensuring the safe transportation of communications between Congress and the troops. This communication was critical to the colonists being able to defeat the British as the war dragged on for seven years.
Shortly after the Revolutionary War, the Philadelphia Convention - now known as the Constitutional Convention - assembled in the Pennsylvania State House to work on revising the weak and flawed Articles of Confederation. Five months of heated debate produced, what is today, the world’s longest surviving written charter of government.
The Constitution strengthened the power of the federal government and created a system of checks and balances by dividing federal authority between the Legislative, Judicial, and Executive branches. Included in the Constitution, is the framework for the Postal Service we have today. Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution contains the Postal Clause which gave Congress the power "To establish Post Offices and post Roads.”
In 1789, Congress passed legislation to continue the Post Office and give the President the power to appoint the Postmaster General. Congress continued to reauthorize the Post Office on a yearly and bi-yearly basis until 1794 when they passed legislation allowing it to operate indefinitely.
As America grew, so too did the Post Office. From 1790 to 1860, the U.S. population grew almost eightfold, from around 4 million people to 31 million people. Simultaneously, the number of Post Offices increased from 75 to 28,498.
By the 1840s, the Post Office faced a crisis as people in new states and territories petitioned Congress for new post routes, regardless of their cost or profitability. Congress ultimately made the decision that the Post Office should prioritize expansion, over fiscal responsibility, with the goal of promoting settlement across America.
For two centuries, the taxpayer funded the Post Office to help the nation expand from the East Coast to the West Coast and everywhere in between. However, in the 1960s, efforts to reform the funding of the Post Office were afoot. At this point, postal operations were hampered by outdated equipment and facilities, as well as underpaid workers and an ineffective management structure. To address these issues, in 1967, President Johnson created the President’s Commission on Postal Organization to “determine whether the postal system as presently organized is capable of meeting the demands of our growing economy and our expanding population.”
The Commission concluded that the Post Office was not operating efficiently because despite being one of the nation’s largest businesses, it was not run as a business. The Commission recommended, among other things, that the Post Office be turned into a self-supporting corporation and hiring and promotions be based on merit.
Despite union opposition, the Senate and House passed legislation that embraced the recommendations of the Postal Commission and on August 12, 1970, President Nixon signed
into law the Postal Reorganization Act. The law which turned the Post Office Department into the United States Postal Service, a government-owned company that was expected to generate enough revenue to pay for itself. Operational authority of the Postal Service was now vested in a board of governors and executive management, rather than Congress. The Postal Service had the authority to issue bonds to finance new infrastructure and could set rates more independently.
Following the passage of the Postal Reorganization Act, operations and service improved as technological advances were implemented and the Postal Service turned a profit. However, with the start of the 21st century, the Postal Service was once again in trouble. Beginning in 2007, and continuing through 2020, Postal Service expenses exceeded income as pieces of mail handled dropped precipitous from over 212 billion in 2007 to under 130 billion in 2020. Last year, the Postal Service reported a net loss of $9.2 billion, $363 million more than it lost in 2019.
Undoubtedly, the financial health of the Postal Service would be better if not for a 2006 law that requires the Postal Service to pre-fund 75 years worth of retiree healthcare benefits in roughly 10 years. However, as of 2019, the Postal Service had only paid about $21 billion of that liability and deferred on some $47.2 billion worth of payments.
The core reason why the Postal Service is struggling is because of changes in consumer habits. Americans and businesses are not sending as much mail through the Postal Service as they used to. While changes could be made to the Postal Service to make it more efficient and better meet the needs of the American people, it is beyond time to ask why the American taxpayer still funds this service.
Since the creation of the Post Office, and as reiterated in the Postal Reorganization Act of 1970, the mission of the organization is, “to bind the Nation together through the personal, educational, literary, and business correspondence of the people.” For over two centuries, the Postal Service executed on this mission and united Americans through wars, depressions and the fundamental transformation of our country into the most powerful and equitable nation on Earth.
However, with the arrival of the 21st century, the American people have embraced new, more efficient means of communicating with their neighbors and those around the world. When the Founding Fathers conceived the Post Office, the inventor of the telegraph was not even born.
As of 2021, 97% of American own a cellphone and 85% of Americans own a smartphone. In addition, 77% of U.S. adults own a laptop or desktop computer, 93% of U.S. adults use the internet on a regular basis and some 77% of U.S. adults have broadband internet service at home.
Everyday, more and more Americans are choosing new means of communications over the Postal Service. And while it is true that 91% of Americans have a favorable view of the Postal Service - more than any other federal agency polled - that can be explained by the apolitical nature of their work. Our elected leaders have successfully been able to demonize virtually every other government agency, including the CDC, the Census Bureau, HHS, DHS, the IRS, the DOJ and ICE .
The Postal Service is not only a quaint relic of the past, but it is actually causing more harm than good. In September of 2020, early voting was beginning in the presidential election as the novel coronavirus pandemic had already killed almost 200,000 Americans. As a result of the pandemic, health officials urged voters to cast their ballot by mail and a record number of voters did. As a historic number of Americans were voting by mail, the Postal Service, under the direction of Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, was cutting back on mail delivery and transportation.
DeJoy, a major Republican donor and close ally of former President Donald Trump, chose to reduce postal service at a time when Americans most needed their post office - a presidential election during the height of a pandemic. DeJoy’s decision to handicap the post office came as President Trump was assailing mail in voting and falsely asserting it was “dangerous,” “unconstitutional,” “a scam” and rife with “fraud.”
For the over 65 million Americans who wanted to cast their vote by mail, the changes that DeJoy was implementing to the Postal Service were clearly aimed at voter disenfranchisement. In September of 2020, a federal judge agreed and blocked DeJoy from making any further changes to slow mail nationwide. Judge Stanley Bastian called DeJoy’s service changes, “a politically motivated attack on the efficiency of the Postal Service” before the November election.
Thankfully, due to vigilance of many watchdog groups and swift judicial action, a record number of Americans were able to stay safe and successfully vote by mail in the 2020 presidential election. In the 27 states and D.C. where data has been released, only 0.6% of absentee ballots cast in the 2020 general election were rejected. And in 20 of the 23 states that provide data for the 2020 and 2016 presidential elections, the 2020 rejection rate was lower than in 2016.
Likely, the politicization of the Postal Service and its ability to deliver ballots in a timely manner, could have been avoided if the service was independent of the government. If a for profit company was tasked with delivering every voter a ballot, and ensuring the return of those ballots, the job would get done correctly or the contractor would risk losing the likely billion dollar business of the U.S. government.
It is far past time that the federal government sells the Postal Service and stops trying to revive a dying business in the name of nostalgia. Whatever money is raised from the sale of the Postal Service could be put towards new means of communication, such as expanding broadband access to underserved communities. By continuing to own and operate the Postal Service, America is looking backwards and constraining itself from identifying new innovations that will help us fight the challenges of the future.
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