WASHINGTON — 5/8/26 – Below are the prepared remarks of Postmaster General and CEO David Steiner, delivered during the U.S. Postal Service Board of Governors open session on May 8, 2026.

Good afternoon.

Thank you, as always, to Chairwoman McReynolds for her insights and relentless championship of issues important to the Postal Service.

And thank you to the rest of our Board of Governors, to our leadership team, and to everyone joining us today.

Before I begin, I would like to acknowledge an important leadership announcement as we continue strengthening our operating model.

Matt Connelly has joined the Postal Service as our Chief Solutions and Strategy Officer. He brings four decades of transportation and supply chain experience, including leadership in network strategy and transformation at UPS.

Matt’s expertise will help us sharpen network planning, execution, and alignment across operations, sales, and marketing as we continue driving service excellence. Welcome, Matt — we are thrilled to have you join us, and I look forward to working with you.

As the Chairwoman mentioned, we meet this quarter on the heels of the National Postal Forum or NPF. That is our annual mailing and shipping conference that brought together more than 5,000 attendees earlier this week.

It was my first NPF… an important week for me and for this organization. It was a chance to convene with — and hear directly from — some of our most important stakeholders…

Customers, mailers, shippers, printers, suppliers, Postal Customer Councils, and, of course, our own employees. It was a chance to learn, and to test many of the assumptions and instincts I have been developing in this role.

And what NPF reinforced for me is one of my strongest beliefs: The Postal Service does not operate in isolation. We are deeply connected to the broader mailing and shipping industry…

We are critical to the strategies of businesses that rely on us…

And we are a core part of the American economy. We sit at the center of a vast network of people, businesses, communities, and institutions that depend on us every single day.

That is what makes this moment one of both momentum and urgency.

Momentum… Because we are making progress in important areas.

Urgency… Because our financial realities remain severe, and the time we have to address them is shrinking.

Let me be direct: The Postal Service remains in a serious financial crisis.

I communicated that plainly in front of Congress and the country in March, because I do not think we serve anyone if we soften these realities. The status quo is not sustainable, and it would be irresponsible to pretend otherwise.

The American public deserves honesty about where we are.

The increased public and media attention around this crisis has brought greater awareness, more serious engagement, and more momentum behind the need for action. More people now understand that this is not a theoretical issue, and not something to simply kick down the road.

To the credit of the current Congress, they are not looking for short-term band-aids, but for long-term solutions. And we intend to provide them.

At the same time, I want to be equally clear that we at the Postal Service have to do our part. We have pulled many levers within our control to reduce costs, improve performance, and increase revenue.

On pricing, we have taken action where appropriate and available. We have already achieved meaningful cost reductions across transportation, work hours, and network operations.

And we have taken short-term cash-conservation steps, including the temporary suspension of our employer contributions to FERS, because preserving liquidity matters right now.

These have not been easy decisions, nor are they perfect solutions. But they are necessary in a moment that requires us to use every responsible tool we have. And we are not done.

As I have said before, there are only three things any company can do to improve financial performance: Sell more, adjust prices, and cut costs. We are looking at all three.

And, we are doing it with a clear focus on growth, because we cannot cost-cut our way to prosperity.

Yes, we must drive efficiency wherever we can, and are focused on doing so, but long-term stability requires growth in relevance, growth in volume, and growth in value to our customers and partners.

I continue to believe the market wants to do business with a Postal Service that is competitive, responsive, and easier to work with.

And we are seeing movement in that direction through major commercial relationships and partnership opportunities.

We have seen encouraging developments in certain key customer relationships, including Amazon and DHL.

And we continue to assess our broader business relationships, including with UPS and others, through the same lens:

How do we become easier to do business with?

How do we fit our network to customer needs?

How do we create more value from the assets we have built?

If we are going to grow, we have to be more responsive, more transparent, more market-aware, and less burdened by unnecessary friction.

That is why we are working to ensure our network responds to the needs of our customers, rather than forcing customers to fit the wants of our bureaucracy. All of those steps — on pricing and costs, new and growing partnerships, and a restructuring review — are what I would call “self-help.”

They are what the Postal Service is doing proactively… and they fall under our control. But self-help alone will not close the gap in the short term. Congress must help us bridge it.

Many of you have heard this before, but it bears repeating:

We need changes to the laws that govern — and restrict — us…

We must see broader relief from outdated statutory and regulatory constraints — many of which were set more than five decades ago — that limit our ability to operate like the modern enterprise the country expects us to be.

If we want to continue the Postal Service as a viable entity, policy makers have two options…

First would be to remove the mandates that ensure the Postal Service loses money: For example, days and levels of service, the ability to close unprofitable offices, and the underpricing of First-Class Mail.

If we had flexibility on those three main issues, we could go a long way towards becoming profitable, but the American public would see reduced levels of service and higher rates.

The second option is to return to the original intent of Congress when they formed the Postal Service in 1971.

In 1971, Congress foresaw that the cost of universal service would likely be too much for the Postal Service to cover on its own. That is why they authorized a public service reimbursement to partially offset the costs related to our costly mandates.

Since 1971, delivery points have increased by tens of millions, mail volumes have decreased by over 50 percent, the number of mandates has increased, the cost of servicing those mandates has increased, and with the rise of the internet and email, the postal world has changed dramatically.

The math is pretty simple.

Revenues and savings cannot offset the costs associated with the universal service obligation, our “USO,” under the current business model. It is unsustainable.

I will also emphasize that paying for those mandates was not viewed by Congress a bailout. It was viewed as a public service reimbursement for the universal service that the Postal Service provides to the nation — a service no other private enterprise is willing or capable of doing. So, it is merely the payment by Congress in return for the Postal Service doing what no other business would do.

So, we will propose that the public service reimbursement be updated to reflect the realities of 2026 and not 1971. In addition, we will propose that we be provided with additional liquidity through changes to our borrowing authority.

And finally, we will propose reform as to how we are expected to fund our two retirement plans. Within the next month, we intend to further develop our legislative agenda and engage stakeholders for feedback.

And I want that work to happen in a coordinated way because the strongest case for reform will be one made by a coalition of coalitions…

A broad, bipartisan effort that keeps delivering the same clear message to Congress. That this should not be a partisan issue. The Postal Service is a nonpartisan issue, and the case for reform should be built and carried out with that same nonpartisan spirit.

I also want to step back for a moment and talk about what is really at stake.

One of the most important things I’ve heard from the industry is not just concern about our financial position…

It is a much clearer understanding of what is at stake if the Postal Service is weakened. The Postal Service was created to serve the nation… And not simply to maximize profit in isolation.

And in doing so, the Postal Service has become so much more than a delivery provider.

It is an economic engine powering an entire ecosystem of American jobs, livelihoods, businesses large and small, economic success stories, and tax revenues.

When we talk about supporting USPS, we are not simply talking about preserving an institution, or what that should or shouldn’t cost. Rather, we should look at what we are enabling…

A postal ecosystem that drives a total industry impact to the tune of nearly $2 trillion dollars in sales revenues and nearly 8 million jobs across the country.

We need to keep building this case with even greater clarity.

We need to showcase the jobs supported, the businesses enabled, and the communities strengthened by our network.

The more clearly we can document and shout that broader impact, and the more voices that do so, the stronger the case we can make for common-sense reform. Rather than an allocation of dollars, we see this as an investment…an investment in an institution that supports a vast commercial ecosystem, millions of jobs, and significant economic activity across the country.

And that is a good investment for the United States. It will grow tax dollars and jobs, the same thing the Postal Service has enabled for over 250 years. That is one reason I remain optimistic.

Not naïve, not detached from the scale of the challenge, but optimistic. Because the network is stronger than it was.

Service continues to improve…

The market wants to work with us…

And, more people now understand that the challenges that face us are not just about the future of USPS alone, but about the broader economic system around it. So let me close with this…

We will keep bringing Americans the service that is core to our mandate.

We will keep innovating…

We will keep investing…

And we will keep pulling every lever available to us.

I want to end with resolve, not just crisis. We have very attractive options if we are willing to act.

So, thank you to this Board, thank you to our leadership team.

Thank you to our employees, our customers, and our partners.

And thank you to everyone for helping move this policy conversation forward with the seriousness it deserves.

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