Staff Reports
The United States Postal Service says it is “out of cash” and is asking Congress to open the purse. But new management alerts from the Postal Service’s own Office of Inspector General show the agency is bleeding money from inside its own systems — fraud in payment accounts and a flood of counterfeit shipping labels. Taxpayers deserve better than a bailout wrapped in excuses.
OIG alerts reveal massive revenue leakage
The OIG found big, avoidable losses. Its Enterprise Payment Account (EPA) alert estimated about $537 million lost last year from unpaid labels tied to EPA problems and warned another $1.3 billion could be at risk next year if fixes aren’t made. A separate alert found more than 10.7 million packages with unpaid postage tied to counterfeit labels and about $46.3 million lost in just a four-month window. Those are not small glitches. They are symptoms of weak controls and sloppy tech at the heart of USPS operations.
The scale of the fraud
Postmaster General David Steiner told lawmakers the agency is “out of cash” and even borrowing from employee retirement funds to keep running. Senate oversight hearings made the stakes plain. Senator Rand Paul bluntly asked whether taxpayers should foot the bill while the USPS loses money to fraud it could stop. The OIG didn’t whisper these problems — it handed them a list of fixes, including shutting down vulnerable systems until proper fraud controls are in place.
Root cause: bad choices, not just bad luck
The root problem is not just external pressure or rising postage costs. USPS decision-makers chose to bring complex payment and label systems in-house instead of relying on private firms that have stronger fraud controls and incentives to stop losses. In other words, the agency rejected market discipline and then complained when leaks showed up. The OIG’s recommendations are technical and fixable, but they demand real oversight and quick action — not another blank check.
What Congress should demand before writing a check
If Congress is going to consider relief, it should make that relief conditional. Require the Postal Service to implement the OIG’s top recommendations, close vulnerable EPA access, install tested fraud controls, and submit to a short, sharp audit. Tie any borrowing-cap changes or pension fixes to measurable anti-fraud milestones. Taxpayers shouldn’t underwrite management experiments. If USPS wants more money, it should first prove it can stop the money from walking out the door in counterfeit labels and payment fraud.
