[Terpfen]

A postal service is NOT mandated by the Constitution. The Constitution grants the federal government the power to operate a postal service if it so chooses; it does not mandate the USPS' existence.

Article 1, Section 8 begins by stating "The Congress shall have the power to…" and continues in Clause 7 with "To establish Post Offices and post Roads". It does not say "The Congress shall" or "The Congress must". It simply states "The Congress shall have the power to…".

That said, I think the USPS is irreplaceable at this point in time. FedEx and UPS are more about business freight at very large scales. They don't have the operations to perform six day a week home-to-home delivery, and I doubt very much they want to be in that business.

[GEC]

The dirty little secret of the delivery business is that no one can deliver the last mile as cheaply as the USPS because it is so heavily subsidized/underpriced at that price point.

If time isn’t a factor, you can’t beat the USPS on price.