the labor unions and technology have destroyed the post office.
it should be privatized and de-unionized.
I would suggest three simple tactics for the post office. First, deliver the mail two days a week...rotate it for different neighborhoods. We don’t need daily mail delivery anymore. Second, at best we need about half the number of post offices that exist today. So start closing them left and right. Third and final...for the month of December, I’d enact a 20-cent additional fee on every package mailed because of the Christmas traffic. It starts on 1 December and ends the day after Christmas.
Why sell commemorative stamps? Yes, they did it in the 1940’s and 1950’s but they were limited editions. One of my uncles went to college when his mother sold her commemorative stamps. They were worth something because they were very limited editions not massed printings like today's commenoratives.
Why sell packing supplies? They do so because their INTERNAL regulations make most packing supplies unacceptable. Visit the local post office and see what happens. Yesterday a legal size envelope fell into two different pricing scales depending on how it was labeled - regular it was a letter; landscape it was a more expensive package.
The post office should concentrate only on mail operations and exit the retail market. playing in the retail market opened them to financial losses when they made poor/unrealistic decisions.
The post office is a costly anachronism that is less useful every day. Let it die. Everything the post office does can be replaced by email and Fedex.
However, before I’d eliminate the post office, I’d get rid of the Departments of Education, Energy, HHS, Agriculture, HUD, Labor and yes, the liberty destroying behemoth known as “Homeland Security.” Each of these federal monstrosities should be more of a priority for the next Republican president than the pathetic post office.