(The Epoch Times)—U.S. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy told Congress on Thursday that he has signed an agreement with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and the General Services Administration (GSA) to work with the U.S. Postal Service.
In a letter sent to congressional lawmakers, DeJoy said DOGE and the GSA will assist the independent government agency in “identifying and achieving further efficiencies.”
“This is an effort aligned with our efforts, as while we have accomplished a great deal, there is much more to be done,” DeJoy wrote. “We are happy to have others to assist us in our worthwhile cause. The DOGE team was gracious enough to ask for the big problems they can help us with.”
DeJoy said DOGE and the GSA will focus on reviewing the “mismanagement of our self-funded retirement assets and the actuarial miscalculations of our retirement obligations.”
They will also look into what he described as the “mismanagement of our Workers’ Compensation Program,” which he said results in $400 million a year in excessive charges when compared to private industry practices.
They will review what DeJoy called the “unfunded mandates imposed on us by legislation,” that, for the most part, require the agency to “perform costly activities without providing any supporting funding.”
DeJoy compared this to the likes of UPS or FedEx providing services to the federal government without charging for them and said it costs the agency between $6 billion and $11 billion annually.
DOGE and the GSA will look into “burdensome regulatory requirements restricting normal business practice,” he said.
DeJoy added that such requirements have cost the postal service over $50 billion in damages by encumbering it with “administering defective pricing models and decades old bureaucratic processes.”
DeJoy noted in the letter to congressional lawmakers that the agency terminated 30,000 workers in 2021 as part of cost-cutting efforts. He said it plans to cut another 10,000 employees in the next 30 days through a voluntary early retirement program.
Trump said last month that he may put the service under the control of the Commerce Department in what would be an executive branch takeover of the agency.
“We want to have a post office that works well and doesn’t lose massive amounts of money,” Trump said at the time. “We’re thinking about doing that. And it’ll be a form of a merger, but it’ll remain the Postal Service, and I think it’ll operate a lot better.”
Regarding privatization of the service, Trump said in December, “It’s an idea a lot of people have had for a long time. We’re looking at it.”
The Epoch Times contacted the White House for further comment but did not receive a response by publication time.
However, Renfroe condemned any move to privatize the service.
“Common sense solutions are what the Postal Service needs, not privatization efforts that will threaten 640,000 postal employees’ jobs, 7.9 million jobs tied to our work, and the universal service every American relies on daily,” he said.
But, but, but… if they fire 10,000 USPS workers, does that mean those of us whose correspondence and billing is all paperless are going to get all our junk mail that clogs our mailboxes a couple of weeks late?
Who’s “Renfroe”?
Maybe this means a letter will have a greater than 45% chance of reaching its addressee the first time, and will only take six days to go coast to coast instead of eight or nine.
I’m not holding my breath.
That “service” that people rely on daily has gotten worse every year. We can’t count on our mail being delivered to the correct address and delivery times have skyrocketed.
That probably amounts to a savings of 1 billion dollars for salary and benefits. GOOD START!