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 ...
“post office and the military are the only required departments mandated by the constitution”
“The Congress shall have power to....establish post-offices and post-roads”
Congress can “establish post-offices and post-roads”, but it didn’t have to, nor does it have to maintain them.
They have to fund current operations and pensions and benefits from fees and stamp sales. They don’t get any taxpayer funds. The privatization push is because of their huge fund that is to support pensions and health benefits. It’s like the hostile company takeovers in the 80’s, take control, loot the retirement funds and then burn it to the ground. If it gets privatized, it will be a sweetheart deal for whomever gets the fund.
First step: Eliminate junk mail. Next step, negotiate rates with UPS, FedEx and all the other private “carriers.”
Or lay new tracks. One for express, one for podunk town stops.
Well, no, USPS is kinda forbidden from turning a profit, they’re just not allowed to lose money. Which, like many things, makes absolutely no rational sense, and certainly doesn’t fund things like - well, keeping roofs water tight, updating facilities, buying machines which are younger than I am...
Doesn’t the USPS make a lot of profit on junk mail?
Mail to the 34275 zip code could be delivered on Friday (the fifth day of the week) by a private company.
Basically, the important incoming mail is:
1. financial mail(banks, brokerages, credit cards)
2. utility mail(I only get water bills[which are paid automatically])
3. government mail(tax bills, jury summons)
The billing cycles could be synchronized to the zip codes.
Routes would be bid out like the Brits do with bus routes, with a maximum available subsidy.
If there are no bidders, you (or a person or entity authorized by you) would have to pick up your mail at a post office.
“support pensions”
The amounts due are known.
“health benefits”
Over 65 - Medicare
under 65 - employer or PPACA
“junk mail”
expect it to die
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Bad proof-reading on my part !
I agree! I love the post office. For under a dollar I can send a truly private communication to anyone I wish without fear of hackers or having my identity stolen.
Losers: Just about any delivery in the middle of nowhere. Post offices open in tiny towns. Vehicles that are 30+ years old. Processing machines that are 30+ years old. Just about any political mail where they pay 20 cents for $1.80 in services rendered.
Winners: Mail service in dense urban areas, post offices in dense urban areas.
The DFA plan centralizes processing to better utilize the dwindling spare parts, picks up outgoing mail at rural offices at the same time as delivering the day’s mail, modernizes the vehicle fleet, centralizes delivery out of tiny offices into larger offices with package sorting automation.
The missing piece is charging enough for non-profit mail. The discounted rate is the single biggest loser for USPS, and the one rate that congress kept in their hands because that’s what’s used for their reelection mail. The oversized and overweight mailings are also the biggest destructors in the machines.
As for overhead, I doubt you could find a CEO of a 600k employee company being paid less than a half million. Wake up the DOJ and actually prosecute all the fraudulent postage being used - both the counterfeit stamps printed in China and the mass shipments from Chinese companies using labels they’ve never paid postage on.
And one of the only truly private means of communication we have left.
“Next step, negotiate rates with UPS, FedEx”
My mail is delivered by what is called a “rural carrier”.
If she wants to keep her route, she can bid on it.
Just go to once-a-week delivery.
Get a P.O. Box if you need delivery more often.
I mailed FR a check on Monday from Florida. By late Friday afternoon my account was debited.
The USPS today is little more than a lucrative government pension fund for blacks to fill my mailbox with grocery store fliers and ads for windshield replacement services.
I may be one of the few who has received stellar service from USPS. One carrier always carried dog treats and it got to the point that our pup went into wags of rapture whenever she heard the mail truck. Another helped right a Christmas tree that tipped over. I was recovering from a broken back at the time. I also worry a profit driven USPS means rural and certain urban areas would have their delivery services extremely curtailed.
The worse experiences I’ve had have been with FedEx. They will outright lie about delivery or reasons for non-delivery. I would hate to depend on them for 1st class mail.
In Salem, OR, the post offices are short handed, with staff working 16 hour days. Our mail is being delivered at 6:40 PM to as late as 8 pm.
the post office uses UPS and FEDEX air services all the time
From what I have read one reason USPS is in the current financial situation is the mandate their financial liabilities be fully funded.
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