The United States Postal Service won’t be delivering mail on this National Day of Mourning for former President George H.W. Bush. Because of a national decision, post offices will be closed and there will be limited package delivery Wednesday.

It’s a bad decision — and a ridiculous one given that the USPS’s many competitors will be on the job just 20 days before Christmas.

It’s also hard to imagine Bush, who died Friday at the age of 94, would have even wanted federal government workers to get a paid day off on his behalf. Bush was a successful businessman before entering public life, and as president, he had a deep appreciation for the importance of government service.

George H.W. Bush wanted a functional government that worked smart and hard for the citizens. He wouldn’t want all of them to have a paid day off while his funeral is being held.

Will federal workers, including postal workers, spend today watching Bush’s funeral on television? How many of them even voted for Bush in his two national elections?

Those questions don’t matter, because over at UPS, FedEx, Walmart and Amazon and companies around the country, work during the busiest shopping season of the year grinds on. For many retailers, the Christmas shopping season is the time of year that either makes or breaks their financial year. That’s why the USPS’s competition is working Wednesday.

Just last month, it was revealed that the USPS had lost a staggering $2.7 billion in the 2017 financial year — the 11th straight year the postal service has lost money.

“Our financial results will continue to deteriorate and likely at an accelerated rate,” Postmaster General Megan J. Brennan told PBS. “We cannot generate enough revenue or cut enough costs to pay all of our bills.”

Sounds like a perfect time to take the day off, right?

Wrong.

If the many financial problems currently faced by the United States Postal Service eventually drive it out of business, we may look on this day off as just another nail in the coffin for a government agency that’s struggling against stronger, smarter private sector rivals.

We cannot know how many USPS workers are personally mourning George H.W. Bush or will watch his funeral on television Wednesday. But they should have been allowed to take personal days off to individually mourn President Bush in their own way while their co-workers remained on the job.

Closing the United States Postal Service on the National Day of Mourning is another mistake by an important federal agency that doesn’t need to be making any more mistakes.