Posted on 12/14/2024 9:24:43 AM PST by E. Pluribus Unum
President-elect Donald Trump has expressed a keen interest in privatizing the U.S. Postal Service in recent weeks, three people with knowledge of the matter said, a move that could shake up consumer shipping and business supply chains and push hundreds of thousands of federal workers out of the government.
Trump has discussed his desire to overhaul the Postal Service at his Mar-a-Lago estate with Howard Lutnick, his pick for commerce secretary and the co-chair of his presidential transition, the people said. Earlier this month, Trump also convened a group of transition officials to ask for their views on privatizing the agency, one of the people said.
Told of the mail agency’s annual financial losses, Trump said the government should not subsidize the organization, the people said. The people spoke on the condition of anonymity to reflect private conversations.
Trump’s specific plans for overhauling the Postal Service were not immediately clear. But he feuded with the nation’s mail carrier as president in 2019, trying to force it to hand over key functions — including rate-setting, personnel decisions, labor relations and managing relationships with its largest clients — to the Treasury Department.
“The government is slow, slow, slow — decades slow on adopting new ways of doing things, and there’s a lot of [other] carrier services that became legal in the ’70s that are doing things so much better with increased volumes and reduced costs,” said Casey Mulligan, who served as a top economist in the first Trump administration. “We didn’t finish the job in the first term, but we should finish it now.”
The postal system is older than the nation itself, founded in 1775 with Benjamin Franklin as its chief, revitalized with free rural delivery at the start of the 20th century, then transformed into a financially self-sustaining agency...
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Hopefully he will privatize Amtrak as well Make train travel great again.
I agree but that will take a constitutional amendment.
He needs to focus on: immigration, crime, DEI, free speech, good jobs, inflation.
Even that's a lot.
After the Republicans took back Congress in 1994, Team Gingrich issued a flood of pie-in-the-sky promises. Rep Dick Armey even talked of abolishing the income tax and IRS.
The GOP's actual achievements were far more modest.
Good points—I would have the Post Office on my list to do after the first one hundred goals were successfully achieved.
I have no problem with doing the business analysis in advance however.
Where exactly?
The “power to establish post offices and post roads” says nothing about a federal postal service. Nor do the clauses about raising and maintaining armies and navies refer to standing forms of same.
Think of the costs associated with junk mail that could be eliminated.
Not sure if you can just eliminate the post office.
The USPS is authorized by the Constitution’s Postal Clause, which gives Congress the power to establish post offices and post roads.
Article I, Section 8, Clause 7 of the United States Constitution gave Congress exclusive power to establish the postal system. It states:
“[The Congress shall have Power . . . ] To establish Post Offices and post Roads;...”
It’s already privatized. And. Trump needs to look at the impact of removing the Postal Service Pension reserves from the Government system. The Postal Service loses money because it is forced to fully fund their pension system—unlike any other government agency. This in turn keeps the rest of the system from going bankrupt.
It sounds nice. But financially, it is a losing proposition unless a LOT of other things happen. The mess of the federal government finances is from it being intertwined into a gigantic Gordian knot.
That’s not an authorization to maintain anything like a USPS.
I think the Postmaster General is the last in the line of succession to the presidency. I think JFK named one of the guys he served with in the Pacific as his Postmaster General.
I don’t know if privatizing the Post Office would be a good idea or not - all the ramifications etc., but I do know I’d like to depend on a schedule for our mail delivery - mailbox at the road - delivery can be anywhere from 9 am to 6 pm....non PO trucks, no uniforms, can’t trust that important mail (checks, gift cards etc.) will not be stolen..BIG, BIG problem here and seems to be NO SOLUTION from anyone in power!!! I think Ossoff has promised to look into it - LOL!
What are the ramifications?
Yes, USPS was turned into an ‘independent agency.’ But, the federal government still has power over it.
For example, the Post Office is required to deliver everywhere. (Delivery companies such as FedEx and UPS won’t deliver to some areas.)
At the same time, the government expects the P.O. to turn a profit, as if it’s a private company.
Getting rid of the post office would also presumably get rid of voting by mail
I would go further and have mail delivery set to only two or three days a week. A region could be mail on Monday and Thursday, another on Tuesday and Friday, and the third on Wednesday and Saturday. You could have one third the delivery drivers. People would have their assigned delivery days.
Most mail that is sent is junk mail. That it’s the only reason the Post office still gets in enough revenue to survive. For items that need to be delivered sooner you could have a special priority mail delivery person.
I guess it depends on what the term ‘Post Office’ meant to the founders; but the consensus has been that the authority is implied. From Wiki:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postal_Clause#Interpretation
I was just thinking the same thing...
You could just eliminate the stops at every podunk town and run express trains between major Metropolitan areas..
Good point. Post offices and postal roads are allowed but not mandated.
“”What are the ramifications?””
I have no idea - whatever those opposed are putting forth...I don’t have an objection to the idea of privatizing..just wish it would be cleaned up - whatever it takes!
If it requires an amendment to the US Constitution, then FED EX, UPS, whoever will be there to make sure it doesn’t happen with politicians only too happy to accommodate them. Nothing in DC is clean or free of corruption.
Never happen... IMHO...
Yup. That was the first thing I thought of.
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.