The Postal Service’s decades-long financial troubles have worsened dramatically as the volume of the kind of mail that pays the agency’s bills ― first-class and marketing mail ― withers during the pandemic. The USPS needs an infusion of money, and President Trump has blocked potential emergency funding for the agency that employs around 600,000 workers, repeating instead the false claim that higher rates for Internet shipping companies Amazon, FedEx and UPS would right the service’s budget.
Trump threatened to veto the $2.2 trillion Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, or Cares Act, if the legislation contained any money directed to bail out the postal agency, according to a senior Trump administration official and a congressional official who, like others in this report, spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Instead, Sens. Gary Peters (D-Mich.) and Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) added a last minute $10 billion Treasury Department loan to the Cares Act to keep the agency on firmer ground through the spring of 2020, according to a Democratic committee aide.
