Leave the Post Office alone: Trump effort to take over the USPS would be unlawful and disastrous

Should President Trump attempt to take control of the U.S. Postal Service, he would be breaking the law, which wouldn’t bother him. Per reporting in the Washington Post, Trump is considering issuing an executive order to get rid of the USPS governing board and bring the agency directly under the Commerce Department.

Trump seems to view executive orders the way one might view spells or hexes: magical invocations that can supersede the laws of nature or, in this case, the laws of the land. Already, he’s tried to supersede his legal limits with executive orders on birthright citizenship and freezing funding already allocated by Congress.

The fact that judges have now intervened to constrict his unlawful behavior does not seem to have discouraged him, because ultimately he’s determined to keep pushing the envelope if and until he’s stopped.

The Postal Service is the nation’s oldest federal function, predating the Declaration of Independence by nearly a year with the appointment by the Continental Congress of Benjamin Franklin as the first postmaster general on July 26, 1775. These days, in the era of social media, email and cell phones, the service — now also competing with private players like FedEx and DHL — might seem a little more anachronistic to some, but there’s a reason that even its private competitors often rely on USPS for so-called last mile delivery.

The postal agency has over literal centuries developed methodologies to reach every part of the country, no matter how remote or unprofitable it would be to serve it, and does so without price gouging these customers. Aside from regular mail, the service delivers ballots, medicine, even live animals. As much as we think of ourselves as being in the internet age, not everyone is connected in the same manner — broadband doesn’t reach everywhere, and can’t deliver everything.

These are among the reasons that, for a U.S. population that loves to complain about the quality and efficiency of government services, USPS remains broadly popular among Americans of all stripes and people like their local letter carrier, who delivers regardless of snow nor rain nor heat etc.

The privatization fantasies of Trump’s inner circle don’t really have anything to do with making the service more efficient, affordable or otherwise farther-reaching. There would be no way to run a private company with the prices and services of the USPS that would please shareholders. Universal free delivery costs money.

Fortunately, Congress had the foresight to understand both the importance of the service and the potential dangers of executive meddling, and so in 1970 walled it off from overt presidential meddling. While the nine Postal Board of Governors are still appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate, the president cannot wrangle the agency to heel like he has done with the Kennedy Center.

We are pleased that the agency has already prepared to defend itself from this potential attack, reportedly retaining outside counsel with instructions to sue if and when the White House comes knocking. If Trump wants to take over the USPS, he’d have to get Congress to do it, and even those weaklings wouldn’t go along. The mail must continue to go through.