On Wednesday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “Special Report,” Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick discussed the possibility of the Commerce Department overseeing the Postal Service by stating that the Postal Service loses money but could be used to save money by doing the Census instead of hiring additional people to do it and could save money by delivering Social Security forms to people directly and reducing the need for Social Security offices.

Host Bret Baier asked, [relevant remarks begin around 11:10] “The U.S. Postal Service coming under Commerce, where did that come from and what is that about and how will Americans deal with it? Will it affect their mail?”

Lutnick answered, “No, it won’t affect their mail. So, the concept was — I’m sitting with the president, and the costs of the Post Office are like it loses $7 billion, and he said, can you do something with it? And I said, sure. So, I saw him the next day, he goes, okay, what have you got? He gives me a whole 24 hours to figure it out. And I said, well, the Commerce Department does the Census. … Can you imagine saying to your postman, can you count the people in the house, what day could he do the Census? Monday? Could he double-check it on Tuesday? How about Wednesday? He goes, every day. … And do you know what else we can do with the Post Office? They can go to your house when you have a baby and give you the form for Social Security. … We actually can do real customer service, go right to your house, someone died, here [are] the forms, you can fill it out, I’ll bring them to your house, customer service. Why? Because we’ve got those people. Let’s use the assets of the government to make us better and save us money.”

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