Postal Meltdown Looms — Who Killed USPS?

Exterior view of a modern United States Post Office building surrounded by greenery

A once-trusted federal agency says it is “out of cash” again, and many Americans are asking if this is a real crisis or the latest manufactured mess from decades of bad laws, bloated unions, and weak oversight.

Story Snapshot

The Postmaster General warns the Postal Service could run out of money within a year and stop delivering mail without new help from Congress.^[2]
The Postal Service has lost about $9 billion a year recently and already hit its $15 billion legal borrowing limit.^[2]^[9]
Critics say the crisis is largely self‑inflicted, driven by sharp stamp price hikes, poor management, and decades of political meddling.^[6]^[12]
Union leaders and some Republicans call the warning “manufactured,” while others push for serious reform instead of another bailout.^[5]^[12]

Postmaster General Warns of a Cash Cliff

Postmaster General David Steiner told Congress this spring that the United States Postal Service could run out of money in less than twelve months if lawmakers do not act.^[2] He said that at the current pace, the Postal Service would not be able to keep delivering mail, paying workers, or paying vendors sometime around early 2027.^[2]^[3] Steiner wants Congress to lift the long‑standing $15 billion borrowing cap and let the agency raise postage rates further, saying higher debt and higher prices are needed just to buy time.^[2]^[3]^[12]

Recent financial numbers back up the warning that the Postal Service is under serious strain.^[2]^[7] The agency reported net losses of about $9 billion in fiscal year 2025 and $9.5 billion in 2024, even as revenue rose slightly thanks to new package services.^[2]^[7] Reuters reports that total operating expenses reached nearly $89.8 billion, while revenue was about $80.5 billion, showing a stubborn gap between what the Postal Service takes in and what it spends every year.^[7]^[9]

Years of Losses, Shrinking Mail, and a Hard Borrowing Cap

The deeper problem goes far beyond one bad year or one warning.^[6] Brookings Institution analysis shows the Postal Service has reported operating losses every year since 2007, adding up to well over $60 billion in red ink in its first decade of crisis and more than $100 billion since then.^[6]^[9]^[13] While mail use has dropped sharply, Congress still demands the same broad nationwide service, turning a normal business challenge into a structural mismatch between legal duties and how the agency is allowed to earn and borrow money.^[6]^[12]

The Postal Service can only borrow from the United States Treasury and only up to the fixed $15 billion ceiling, a limit that has not changed since the early 1990s.^[6]^[3] It cannot issue stock, tap private capital markets, or sell regular bonds like a private company.^[6] The agency first hit that cap in 2012 and reached it again in 2024, leaving no room to cover ongoing yearly deficits with new debt.^[6]^[13] Brookings reports that the Postal Service ended 2025 with about $8.2 billion in cash, which equals only around one month of operating expenses at current spending levels.^[6]

Service Cuts, Pension Strain, and Workers in the Crosshairs

To stretch its remaining cash, Steiner’s team has started cutting around the edges.^[4] An internal memo revealed by Reuters shows the Postal Service has halted non‑essential spending on travel, office supplies, and outside consultants to protect basic mail operations.^[4] Other reporting says management even stopped biweekly employer payments into the Federal Employees Retirement System, about $200 million every two weeks, using workers’ future benefits as an emergency reserve to keep the lights on today.^[3]

Steiner has also floated more drastic measures that directly affect customers and communities.^[3]^[12] In testimony, he suggested raising the price of a first‑class stamp from the current upper‑70‑cent range to as much as 95 cents to help close the gap.^[3] He also talked about moving to five‑day delivery as a way to save an estimated $3 billion a year, though his team has not released a clear breakdown showing how those savings would be achieved without major service cuts in rural and suburban America.^[3] That lack of detail worries many conservatives who rely on mail for prescriptions, bills, and voting materials.

Did Congress and Unions Create This Crisis?

Many experts point to a key law passed in 2006 as a major cause of the long‑running crunch.^[11]^[14] The Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act forced the Postal Service to build a huge $72 billion fund to prepay retiree health benefits decades into the future.^[14] Research on the law shows that if this prefunding mandate did not exist, the Postal Service would have reported operating profits in several recent years instead of deep losses.^[14] In other words, Washington forced the agency to carry costs few private businesses ever face.

The Postmaster General testified that under a *proposed* USPS rule implementing Trump's March 2026 EO, the Postal Service would not deliver mail ballots if states refuse to provide voter lists/manifests. The attached image in the original post was just generic ballots — no…

— Grok (@grok) June 24, 2026

At the same time, the Postal Service has often made its own problems worse.^[12] Lawmakers noted in a recent oversight hearing that single‑piece First‑Class Mail volume fell from a historic peak of 213 billion pieces per year to about 109 billion pieces, wiping out roughly $81 billion in potential revenue at today’s stamp price.^[12] Instead of adjusting service and cutting waste, the agency hiked stamp prices about 49 percent in just five years, driving more customers away and speeding up the volume decline.^[2]^[12]

Fights Over “Manufactured” Crisis and What Comes Next

The Postmaster General’s warning has sparked a political fight inside the Postal world and on Capitol Hill.^[3]^[5] Some union leaders, including the president of the American Postal Workers Union, have called the crisis “nothing to see here” and accused management of exaggerating the danger to push through restructuring plans that harm workers.^[3]^[5] Several Republican lawmakers have responded by telling the Postal Service to “fix it yourself,” resisting calls for another bailout and demanding better management before any new borrowing or cash relief.^[5]^[12]

There are also serious concerns about oversight and power grabs.^[3] An internal Postal Service reform paper called “Accelerating Progress: Elements of Postal Reform” reportedly suggests eliminating the Postal Regulatory Commission, the independent body that keeps an eye on pricing and service standards.^[3] One commissioner summed up Steiner’s push as “Give us more money with less oversight,” warning that taxpayers and customers could be left holding the bag.^[3] For conservatives who value limited, accountable government, a cash‑hungry agency asking for more debt and fewer watchdogs is a clear red flag.