I don’t know if Stossel is innocently ignorant or just lying when he fails to mention that much of the USPS’s losses are due to the Congressional requirement to prefund retiree benefits for the rest of the century. No business could make a profit under that burden.
My last visit to the Post Office was surreal, like a trip to an old Soviet Union “super” market.
Long line to get a service window and told “we haven’t got any stamps, try again next week.”
Right from the beginning there was as much Congressional interference in USPS decisions as there had been before setting it up.
It's usually bipartisan ~ I remember the day Casey took over ~ that's Reagan's buddy ~ he brought in some of the Classification decisions he didn't like that'd been sent to his publications and demanded they be 'reviewed' which meant that his intention was to 'reverse' them.
Open corruption at the top is the same now as ever ~
I have a fully developed privatization plan.
I haven’t been to a post office in years. If I have to ship something I go to a privately owned shipping store where they offer me a variety of shipping options. I hardly use snail-mail anymore but if I need stamps I can get them at my local supermarket.
Stop hiring people as political favors or to fill a quota.
From the beginning, this country decided to have a postal service that goes EVERYWHERE, including APO/FPO, inland Alaska, Hawaii and Death Valley. Some time later, we decided on a uniform price for same.
Those areas would never be served under a purely private system. It is unlikely that 1 oz first class mail (the most politically sensitive of mail prices) would stay anywhere NEAR 50 cents except in densely populated areas. Other services would come and go, like airlines in the 80s, leaving mail, instead of passengers stranded.
The USPS is also forced to have special price classes for libraries, offerings for the blind, media mail and of course the “Franking” privilege, ensuring elected officials can send news (often thinly disguised campaign mailers) to constituents.
I don’t know if it gets credited by the gov for Franking, etc., but a purely private system would need some “food stamp” type program or maybe tax deductions to offset the imposed extra expenses.
I am doubtful that the end result would run any better or cost any less.
The US Constitution states that Congress has to establish “Post Offices” ir DOES NOT say what these “Post Offices” have to look like and who/what has to “Man/Operate” them.
The last time I went in there, they wouldn’t tape my box shut (I bought it right there). So, I had to buy tape at the counter, get out of line and go tape my box, and get back in line to wait another half hour. They had their big tape guns right there...but they refused to use it (I’m not sure who gets that ‘special’ treatment)’.
None of them are required to make a stop at every house on every street 6 times per week to drop off a cataloge and two flyers. Require them to do that and then let's see how much money they make.
If USPS did not pay the janitors at the Montgomery, Alabama
Post Office $51,094.00 with Cadillac Benefits on top, then maybe the USPS would not be in the financial angst it has made for itself.
How much does Fed Ex or UPS pay its Janitors?
Montgomery Laborer Custodial $51,094.00
They could do better, but of course Congress (not even the supposedly stingy Republicans) will let them.
Comparing them to FedEX or USPS which wouldn't make a profit mailing letters to Searchlight, NV at under $1 a pop is a category mistake.
I'll have to disagree there. Anyone who ever has a little time in DC should take a short walk to the postal museum near the Amtrak Station.
It was a model of efficiency post World War II. A letter could get from Maine to California in 2-3 days tops traveling in trains which seldom went over 30 mph. For three cents, or about two-thirds of what it costs today adjusted for inflation.
There was a mail car on this train where a mere 1-2 workers furiously sorted mail en route, leaving a bag at the next station or junction which was bound for a destination in different directions than where the train was heading. Then the worker or workers would get back on a train heading in the opposite direction for the second half of their shift and were back where they started when the shift ended. On main lines, where trains ran through the night, a relief crew was ready to take over 24/7. On the secondaries, there were relief crews for only as long as the train ran, typically 12 or 16 hours.
Where trains didn't make regular runs, buses connected the train routes to perform the same function. If you are as old as I am and still fortunate enough to have parents or grandparents who lived during this time, they will confirm it. My mother, who lived in the west, and her sister, who was working in the east, have penny postcards and replies typically postmarked 3-4 days apart to prove it.
It was an absolute marvel of precision and efficiency with 1940s technology. Of course, postal workers were not unionized and only got a wage and benefit package slightly better than their counterparts in private industry in those days.
Article I, Section 8, Clause 7 of the United States Constitution, known as the Postal Clause or the Postal Power, empowers Congress “To establish Post Offices and post Roads”.
Everybody wants to get rid of the USPS, but its establishment is in the Constitution.
The USPS is an easy target, because it is the most recognizable part of the federal government in every city and neighborhood. It still moves an amazing amount of mail (Fed Ex and UPS deliver only a tiny fraction what the USPS delivers daily). If you look at its losses over the past 5 years, it is minuscule to the trillions of dollars of debt from far, far more wasteful and destructive divisions of the government.