First, I didn’t know that postal service was specifically in the constitution... So that was my ignorance/error...
Second, I didn’t “read past what I didn’t like in the constitution”, see “First”.
Third, from what was posted the United States Government was given the power to to establish Post Offices but that does not provide a mandate that it must nor is it an individual right that the government is required to provide. It simply gives them the authority to do so. Continue to correct me if I’m wrong.
So please explain how that passage in the constitution either establishes postal service as a right or mandated service.
“So please explain how that passage in the constitution either establishes postal service as a right or mandated service.”
Hey, no anger here! The Constitution says the government shall establish a post office and postal roads; this from a time when very few communities were connected by roads. The Founders where trying to connect the colonies together.
Later, much later, the post office became a rent-seeking welfare project. I think it has roughly 600,000 employees now, but probably has twice that number retired. The benefits are spectacular compared with the private sector. Come this winter, unless the taxpayers swoop in and bail out the mandated retirement system, the PO stops making full retirement payments. That means that if Congress doesn’t act, then Congress is throwing away somewhere in the neighborhood of 2 million votes, plus annoying all those who still use the antiquated service.
As far as the postal service being a right or mandated service; it’s just one line in The Constitution. It could be a ceremonial office, like the Surgeon General.
Is the Post Office still needed? No. It is as obsolete as sailing ships. Will Congress swoop in and rescue it? Almost certainly. Although, I’d point out, that Bernie Schwartz of Loral, bought up dozens of companies using their retirement funds as leveraged buyout capital. He got the firms and wrote out checks for the total amounts of their retirement funds to his creditors to pay back the money he borrowed. Thousands upon thousands of retired and soon to retire workers lost an entire career’s worth of savings. I think if Bill Clinton allowed that (Bernie spent more time in the Lincoln bedroom than Mr. Lincoln did.) then we the taxpayers don’t owe the current and former postal workers any more respect than the former Loral employees got.
Section 8, after it talks about "establish post offices" goes on to say:
To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.
Which means Congress can establish the United States Postal Service, the Private Express Statutes, and a number of other laws ~ all of which "shall be necessary and proper " to "establish post offices".
They make it an "exclusive" legislative prerogative if they wish ~ if it's in Section 8, or they can "share".
The Tenth Amendment then says:
Amendment X ~ The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
So, if a power is enumerated and delegated to the United States ~ that is, the federal government ~ then it may be construed to be prohibited by it to the States.
And so it is. Besides, you do not now nor did you ever find "the states" clamoring after the prerogative of setting up their own postal systems.
You'll find many of the arguments made by folks who want a private postal service rely on a construction of the "commerce clause" ~ yet, since this "post office" business is an enumerated power, the Tenth Amendment clearly exempts it from any arguments regarding the commerce clause ~ but interestingly enough, not to the amendment ending Prohibition. That amendment takes liquor right out of the equation when it comes to USPS. It would violate the universal edicts of the Postal Reorganization Act to make any attempt to keep up with the various state laws.
Remember, when it comes to the USPS you must always evaluate it as an agency of the federal government and not as a corporation established under a state law.
I think that should satisfy any questions you have about why Congress legislates the rules regarding "the mail".
‘the United States Government was given the power to to establish Post Offices but that does not provide a mandate that it must’
Precisely.
It can abandon providing postal service just as it abandoned providing post roads.