Dear John,

The wolves of Wall Street are watching while Postmaster General Louis DeJoy continues to turn the U.S. Postal Service into a ghost of itself, several years into his 10-year plan for privatization.

By reducing the speed and reliability of mail delivery, while dramatically increasing its price, DeJoy is doing his best to make his own assessment of the USPS as in its “death spiral” come true.

After all, DeJoy was appointed shortly after Trump’s Office of Management and Budget recommended the USPS should be gutted and handed over to Wall Street. It could be said he is simply doing what he was hired to do.

The decision to privatize the USPS was a highly partisan one; however, since the Postmaster General is appointed not by the president, but by the USPS Board of Governors, only they can remove him. So, still serving at the pleasure of the Board, DeJoy continues to wreak havoc on the agency three years into the following Democratic term.

The citizens who will be most affected by this engineered collapse of the Post Office are those in more isolated, rural areas, Indigenous communities, seniors, and veterans, who may depend on the U.S. mail to deliver both medications and vote-by-mail ballots.

Don’t let Louis DeJoy privatize the USPS! Send a message directly to your members of Congress and the USPS Board of Governors demanding they stop mail slowdowns and price hikes, and restore 2012 delivery standards, to save the post office now.

Rural areas are especially dependent on the USPS and its services, because unlike private companies, like UPS and FedEx, the USPS is legally required to deliver mail everywhere in the country, and charge just one price for letters sent anywhere. This very requirement is part of what makes the USPS a proud public agency, as reflected in the well-known adage,

"Neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds."

The saying may be old-fashioned, but it’s still true: the tradition of the Post Office, going back to Benjamin Franklin, is one of dedication to a crucial public service. But private companies don’t build offices where it doesn’t bring them a profit, so they often rely on the USPS for “last mile delivery” to get mail and packages to remote locations.

The alternative to a public agency with a charge for the public good, is a private corporation with a charge to enrich its shareholders, and this would mean higher prices for harder-to-serve places, if indeed any delivery is available at all.

This is the difference between a public service and a private business: A service exists for the common good and need not turn a profit, whereas a business exists to make a profit for itself and its shareholders. The USPS is unique in its ability to connect us all, across all ZIP codes, in every corner of the country.

DeJoy has responded to pressure before. Pressed by both the grassroots and Congress, DeJoy increased the USPS electric vehicle purchasing plan from 10% to 62% of the fleet. When we kept up the pressure, he committed the fleet to reduce emissions 40% by 2030. Under further pressure, he agreed to a pause in consolidating processing centers until January 2025, to protect vote-by-mail in the upcoming election.

None of these concessions would have come without pressure from us and our allies in Congress. Now we need to press on to the next points: it’s time to stop the slowdowns and price hikes, and to restore delivery standards as they stood in 2012. Nothing less is enough to put the Postal Service back on a path of efficient public service!

Stop the privatization of the USPS and rebuild the service for the 21st century! Tell Congress and the USPS Governors: No more slowdowns and prices hikes, and bring back the 2012 delivery standards!

Thank you for standing behind our cherished U.S. Postal Service!

Robert Reich
Inequality Media Civic Action