Even if election-year politics were not paralyzing Congress, it would be hard to pass a major reform of the U.S. Postal Service. Heaven knows the USPS needs an overhaul: It’s losing customers and billions of dollars per year, in part because electronic communication has rendered its traditional business model — first-class mail — obsolete. Yet postal unions, bulk mailers, rural communities and other “stakeholders,” as special-interest groups are now known in Washington, have lobbied successfully against change.
It was in that depressing context that Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), the chairman of the House committee that oversees the Postal Service, heard testimony this month on the Obama administration’s ideas for reform . Among the points Brian C. Deese, the deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget, made was that the president favors a phase-out of Saturday mail delivery, along with greater use of curbside mail delivery, as the president proposed in his fiscal 2015 budget. Taken together, such “streamlined delivery” would save USPS $500 million per year, Mr. Deese testified. That’s not nearly enough, by itself, to rectify the Postal Service’s financial problems, but it’s not chump change, either.
More important, perhaps, ending Saturday delivery is one of the few substantial reforms that enjoys widespread, bipartisan support. President Obama wants it. Mr. Issa is in favor. A Senate committee has already passed a bill, by a vote of 9 to 1, that would allow USPS to end Saturday delivery.