By Zachary Stieber Contributing Writer  President-elect Donald Trump said on Monday that it’s possible that the U.S. Postal Service could be privatized.  “There is talk about the Postal Service being taken private,” Trump told reporters at an unrelated press conference, after being asked about his thoughts on the USPS. “Not the worst idea I’ve ever heard, really isn’t.”  A reporter mentioned Amazon founder Jeff Bezos as someone who could take over the USPS and streamline the operation.  “It’s a lot different today between Amazon and UPS and FedEx, and all the things that you didn’t have,” Trump said. “But there is talk about that, it’s an idea that a lot of people have liked for a long time. We’re looking at it.”  During Trump’s first term, the White House in a government reform plan noted that the USPS has repeatedly defaulted and called the agency’s current model unsustainable.  “Major changes are needed in how the Postal Service is financed and the level of service Americans should expect from their universal service operator,” the plan stated. “One successful model of postal reform internationally has been to transition to a model of private management and private or shared ownership.”  The benefits of transitioning the USPS to the private sector would include a greater ability to adjust pricing and negotiate pay and benefits for workers.  President Joe Biden opposes privatization. In 2022, he signed legislation providing USPS with about $50 billion in financial relief over 10 years.  The USPS also received a $10 billion loan in 2020 for pandemic-related expenses, which was later forgiven.  The American Postal Workers Union, which represents USPS employees, is among the entities that have said that privatization would cause problems, including making it more difficult to send and receive mail.  Trump at some point in his second term is set to receive recommendations from the Department of Government Efficiency, an outside group led by businessmen Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy. The men have said the panel will focus on ways to make the government more efficient by cutting waste.  The USPS, which has about 525,000 workers, lost $9.5 billion in fiscal year 2024, which ended on Sept. 30. The service also has more than 700,000 retirees relying on its pensions and has tens of billions in liabilities.  Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, who was appointed by the USPS board of governors in 2020, told members of Congress during a Dec. 10 hearing that he’s implemented some changes aimed at modernizing the USPS. “Moving forward, we will aggressively focus on cost control, revenue growth, and innovative service offerings that meet the needs of our customers at reasonable prices,” he said.  DeJoy also asked Congress to lower the service’s costs for retiree benefits, revise the agency’s pricing scheme, and give the agency more funding.  Rep. James Comer, R-Kentucky, chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives Oversight and Accountability Committee, said during the hearing that he thinks it would be too difficult to privatize the entire USPS because “nobody wants to deliver the mail to every house in America, six days a week, and to operate all of those retail postal facilities.”  Some tasks, such as mail sorting, can be handed off to private companies, he added.  DeJoy said he’d work with the incoming administration and Congress to consider various options.  “The goal of the Postal Service is to break even,” he said. “And we’re not doing that.”  The post Trump says he’s looking into privatizing US Postal Service  appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.