Public Service: Impacting Everyone, Every Day, Everywhere

Public Service: Impacting Everyone, Every Day, Everywhere
By Bob Levi
NAPS Director of Legislative & Political Affairs

Ever since I came to Capitol Hill in 1983, the persistent postal refrain has been the Postal Services is self-sufficient — not reliant on tax dollars. This self-perpetuating myth “mostly” is true. However, it was never “absolutely” true.

The legislative history and text of the Postal Reorganization Act of 1970 proves this. Accepting, processing and delivering mail for everyone, everywhere, every day, requires more resources than postage stamps alone can provide. This is the reason a “public service appropriation” is embedded in postal law — 39 USC 2401(b) — that was enacted 56 years ago.

For more than a year, NAPS has been drawing increased congressional attention to this critical, yet ignored, law. As readers may recall, the April 2026 issue of The Postal Supervisor recounted NAPS President Ivan D. Butts’ March 5 testimony before the Congressional Postal Service Caucus where he declared Congress needed to revisit the Postal Service public service appropriation and provide sufficient funds to meet the agency’s universal service obligation.

Over the years, the Postal Service and many of its stakeholders resisted requesting the appropriation for several reasons, including:

• the agency would not need the funds

• the funds would not be sufficient

• Congress would interfere with postal operations

• the Postal Service must be self-sufficient

Over the past year, NAPS has been educating members of Congress on how each one of these “excuses” for rejecting the public service aspect of postal law is wrong. Moreover, for the past few months, NAPS has pitched a legislative concept that weds successful fulfillment of the universal service obligation with the much-needed public service appropriation. So far, the bipartisan reception has been positive.

Indeed, NAPS commends Postmaster General David Steiner for reversing more than 40 years of postal resistance to the public service appropriation. First, the PMG hinted at a course change during the March 17 House postal subcommittee hearing when he responded to a question posed by Rep. Brian Jack (R-GA) and accurately stated that the 1970 Postal Reorganization Act recognized Congress should cover the costs of providing rural mail service.

More recently, at the May 8 Postal Board of Governors meeting, Steiner declared the Postal Service would seek legislation to get the public service appropriation. As NAPS has been working on Capitol Hill on this issue for months, we genuinely desire to work with the Postal Service to successfully secure this necessary appropriation.

It is important for NAPS members to understand the background of this issue. Before enactment of the Postal Reorganization Act, the pre-1971 Post Office Department relied on congressional appropriations for all its operations. In addition, Congress set postage rates and postal employee compensation. Moreover, the PMG was a member of the White House cabinet. This all changed in 1971.

The Postal Reorganization Act (Public Law 91-375) authorized appropriations for the newly established independent agency, the U.S. Postal Service. The most consequential appropriation is that all postage collected and revenue received by the Postal Service is appropriated directly to the independent agency. In a sense, this is the basis of postal “self-sufficiency.”

However, even in 1970, when Congress sought to loosen the institutional bond between itself and the Postal Service and jettisoned the postmaster general from the president’s cabinet, it recognized that postage alone would not be sufficient to sustain the Postal Service. Certain aspects of postal operations were not economical and could not be funded by postage alone.

For example, the 1970 law provided appropriations to reimburse the Postal Service for diplomatic mail, mail for the blind and overseas election ballots — the “revenue forgone” appropriation. For fiscal year 2027, the House Appropriations Committee approved $38 million to reimburse the Postal Service for revenue forgone.

The 1970 law also authorized appropriations to reimburse the agency for “public service costs incurred by it in providing a maximum degree of effective and regular postal service nationwide…” The section also refers to maintaining post offices that are not self-sustaining.

The last time the Postal Service requested this public service appropriation was in 1982; the amount was $460 million. In 2026 dollars, this appropriation would total $1.6 billion.

What NAPS and Steiner maintain is the agency cannot meet its public service obligations under the current postal financing structure. This is the flawed “business model” to which so many students of the Postal Service and legislators refer. The May 1 NAPS Chat with Dr. Elena Patel of the Brookings Institution covers this and much more.

Of course, the public service appropriation alone is not the sole means of providing the Postal Service with the financial means to thrive, but it would enable the agency to provide the maximum degree of postal service nationwide and represent congressional affirmation of this legacy policy. This change would be a major step to revise the postal “business model.”

NAPS continues to work with other postal stakeholders to address the Postal Service’s outdated and inadequate line of credit to more fairly calculate the USPS’ Civil Service Retirement System liability and to permit the agency to expand investment opportunities for its health and retirement trust funds.

Together, these reforms would help propel forward the agency that is important to everyone, every day, everywhere.