The Washington Post reports that President-elect Trump has been talking to advisors about privatizing the U.S. Postal Service. The newspaper says people with knowledge of the subject have said that Trump feels the government should not subsidize the mail carrier, especially in light of its financial losses.

“There’s a lot of [other] carrier services that became legal in the ’70s that are doing things so much better with increased volumes and reduced costs,” Casey Mulligan, who served as a top economist in the first Trump administration, told the Post.

The paper points out that Trump “feuded with the nation’s mail carrier as president in 2019, trying to force it to hand over key functions — including rate-setting, personnel decisions, labor relations and managing relationships with its largest clients — to the Treasury Department.” He also opposed voting by mail.

The USPS says it processed more than 99 million ballots last month, “In 2024, the Postal Service once again admirably performed our role of efficiently and effectively delivering the nation’s ballots,” said Postmaster General Louis DeJoy in a press release.

The Post warns that changes to the USPS could have a major impact on the e-commerce industry. Cuts in its service could also have a backlash from voters (and members of Congress) in rural areas that are only served by the USPS, which pledges six-day-a-week delivery to every address in the U.S.

How would privatization affect stamp collectors? Would we see more issues for toys like Hot Wheels (2018) and movie releases like “Lightyear” (2022)?

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