Democrats are panicking as President Donald Trump amid President Donald Trump’s suggestion that the United States Postal Service (USPS) could be reformed, Breitbart reports. While President Trump has not announced an indefinite plan for such action, he openly criticized the USPS, noting that he would like to see a Postal Service that does not “lose massive amounts of money.”
“It’s been just a tremendous loser for this country, tremendous amounts of money they’ve lost,” President Trump said. “And we think we can do something that will be very good and keep it a very similar way, but whether it’s a merger or just using some of the very talented people that we have elsewhere so it doesn’t lose so much.”
In his remarks, Trump said that the reform “will be a form of a merger, but it’ll remain the Postal Service,” adding that in doing so it will operate better than it has over the years.
Trump’s comments struck a nerve with Democrat members of the House Oversight Committee, who, according to The Hill, urged Trump not to go through with making plans to reform the Postal Service.
In a letter addressed to President Trump, Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA) voiced concerns alongside other Democrats that reforming the USPS would harm U.S. postal service.
Connolly wrote in the letter, “Your reported efforts to dismantle the Postal Service as an independent agency would directly undermine the affordability and reliability of the U.S. postal system,” adding, “We urge you to abandon immediately any plans that would either privatize the Postal Service or undermine the independence of the Postal Service.”
The Washington Post reported that President Trump is possibly considering firing the USPS board and “absorbing” the USPS into the Department of Commerce. Addressing this point, Connolly said that doing so would require congressional cooperation, which he said Trump would not get on the matter.
Connolly argued that a disruption to the USPS would put the timely and affordable delivery of things like life-saving medications and “important financial documents” at risk. The Democrat representative further argued that reforming the USPS would also risk “political interference,” suggesting that changes would reflect “shifting priorities of Administrations.”
According to Breitbart, Trump’s comments on reforming the USPS and the Democrats’ letter on the matter came just after Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, who was appointed during President Trump’s first term, announced that he will be stepping down from his position.