Posted on 01/08/2006 12:41:03 PM PST by notpoliticallycorewrecked
Okay enquiring minds want to know :
Which would you prefer a private company delivering your mail or the U.S.P.S.?
At what cost?
Pricing everything at a flat rate that covers the cost is a reasonable and fair way to go. Why subsidize the liberal city centers with cheap service at the expense of citizens and businesses in Bush Country?
Everybody gets treated equally, 39 cents to pay the phone bill or write home to mom regardless of where you live.
Try that with FedEx and you will see how utterly wrong you are.
It pretty much failed, mostly due to a failure of Congress to provide suitible capital support.
UPS, on the other hand, was a local package and furniture delivery business in Seattle. Some Post Office Department managers who were upset that Congress wouldn't support their scheme to "fix" parcel delivery for once and all, bought it out and turned it into today's UPS. First thing they did was dump the furniture moving part.
Fed Ex is pretty much the idea of a fellow who borrowed it from his roommate in college whose father, the postmaster of Gary, Indiana, had come up with it.
Mail delivery really shouldn't mix with parcel delivery, or furniture moving.
That may be a bit misleading.
Many of those 6,000 miles are not even close to being densely populated, where mail goes, or where mail delivery is necessary.
I've made many drives from Cleveland to New York, New York to Houston, Houston to Los Angeles, Los Angeles to Chicago and there's a ton of rural areas, lots of "no man's land."
Not much is going on, on the left hand side of the map, with the exception of the far left.
1 & 2. Well I glad that you have had better "luck" with them than I have, but not getting mail or getting it in an unresasonable time frame, if at all is a weekly event in our area.
3. I don't need a smile I need service. When you see a 30 yo man that is 6 foot tall take baby steps to walk across the room to drop a package in a bin and walk back it makes me want to go "postal". This is of course when there are 7 or 9 people waiting in line. Is there so sort of union rule that they have to walk slow so that they don't make their co-workers look bad.
Higher rates to out-of-the-way places would result in costs to deliver to more populous areas dropping. End result: everyone gets what they pay for.
This little deal is in the original text ~ not any amendment!
Might try reading the Constitution someday.
The voice of a Monopoly. Sheesh.
Telephones work. Call your correspondent. Ask them to bring by direct payment in gold!
Trust no one.
We're obviously using different definitions of the word "subsidize."
When I say "subsidize," I mean "forcibly allocate resources to something that would have otherwise gone somewhere else." It seems that when you say "subsidize," you simply mean "to cause resources, by whatever means, to go somewhere other than where they are now."
Since the free market would make sending letters to "liberal city centers" less costly, while sending letters to "Bush country" more costly, it's actually the city centers that are subsidizing the rural areas.
So no, a flat rate is neither reasonable nor fair, for the same reason that getting ten suits drycleaned for the same price as getting one shirt laundered for the same price is neither reasonable nor fair. That's like arguing that it ought to cost the same amount of gasoline to drive two city blocks as it does to drive fifty country miles. One involves a smaller expenditure of resources than the other, and so it is only rational that one should cost less than the other.
And I don't particularly care who lives and votes where. I vote Republican, and I live in an urban area (of sorts). Making this sort of thing out to be a jab at Bush voters is a Jesse Jackson tactic. Different service prices based on how much it costs to do the job simply represents a more efficient allocation of resources.
"Here's the thing: your taxes prop up the USPS no matter if you use it or not."
The USPS gets no federal subsidies. They make most of their money from junk mail. First class is an "inconvience" that they tolerate.
It would just go to some b.s. entitlement program.
I'd rather have it going to the USPS.
Gubmint never, ever would let us have that money back.
Now, when it comes to leased facilities (owned by private parties), USPS pays property taxes.
It's a RIGHT, not a MANDATE. The Constitution does not require a Post Office. Privatizing the USPS would be completely Constitutional.
There are other postage payment practices you should learn about.
"What amendment to the Constitution created the USPS???
Not sure, but Ben Franklin was the first postmaster general. It was a cabinet position.
The problem isn't to get the employees to work hard ~ rather, the problem is to shed load that doesn't support base costs.
My local post offices are great.
You certainly had the option of buying stamps to put on your packages. No one made you put $1 on each one.
But you are also entitled to your opinion.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.