People are implicitly voting for higher prices every time they buy something at a higher price. The average cost for a car would be lower if people always only bought the cheapest car on the market, but in practice many are willing to pay more.
"Contrary to statements made by some employee groups and other stakeholders, PAEA did not require USPS to prefund 75 years of retiree health benefits" https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-13-112.pdf
Also the 2022 Postal Service Reform Act eliminated the prefunding and ~$57 billion of overdue payments, but USPS finances were still dogshit afterwards: USPS revenue was $80 billion and expenses were $89 billion in FY2024
I don’t think of their finances as being dogshit because there aren’t revenue positive. It’s a fraction of a sliver of the federal budget to run a constitutionally mandated service.
The (non-navy) military has no constitutional mandate at all, it’s an industrial scale cash incineration device which the postal service can’t hold a candle to, and we don’t blink at it wasting 10x or more of the postal service’s opex.
Would you allow other companies to deliver letters and to deliver stuff inside mailboxes? I find it disgusting that a company with a monopoly on those two services still can't make a profit.
They also have to deliver to every valid residential address.
You wouldn’t see UPS or fedex running a mule train to make sure an area still gets mail[1]
If we let other companies take over and kill the USPS we’ll just see a ton of areas of the country not get delivered too because the profit margin isn’t there.
Someone just bringing whatever shit they want to my house? Junkmail needs to be deregulated? Everytime I hear the "notions" of the libertarian/hypercapitalist ilk it just sounds like "What if your life could be even shittier than it is now?!?"
>Yes. Organizations must fund pensions up front and not rely on future revenue to make up for shortfalls.
What? Maybe my reading comprehension is a little off this morning but are you saying a company offering a pension plan must set aside hundreds of thousands of dollars day 1 every time they hire a new employee?.... That math doesn't math.
Yes, thats exactly right. The ability to profit was granted and they were kneecapped by the price cap. They haven't profited since the legislation and immediately started incurring large losses. That's all in my comment already.
By no means was I implying that the ability to profit means they did profit. Im just stating what the law was.
I'm guessing that was what the lobbyists intended. Nominally the law permitted a profit, and that's how it was sold, but it was structured as a bulk mailer subsidy. Strategic discourse subterfuge.
Also, FWIW, AFAIK the lions share of the USPS deficit is for funding healthcare benefits. Healthcare costs are rising much faster than inflation, and because they're finding future obligations that additional inflationary margin is a killer. Pension obligations are now under control. Of course, fully funding your benefit obligations is the right thing to do, but public agencies have been making promises they can't keep and the USPS is a rarity in being forced to properly fund them rather than kick the can down the road. It's unfair in one sense, but perfectly fair in another.
A big thing they could do for costs is reduce mail delivery to the final destination to once or twice a week. They would need anywhere from 1/2 to 1/5 the number of delivery drivers and vehicles that they have today.
The vast majority of first-class and bulk-rate mail is not anything can't wait a few days. For truly urgent deliveries, use a courier service or pay a higher postage that covers the expenses of that.
I like the fact that I can get mail delivered timely. I'd rather see the post office operate at a loss than stop delivering mail except for once or twice a week. If the post office wants to make more money, I'd rather pass a law that lets the raise prices for spam while requiring them to keep stamp prices for personal mail low.
> They would need anywhere from 1/2 to 1/5 the number of delivery drivers and vehicles that they have today
And that's why it (unfortunately) won't happen lol the USPS is as much of a jobs program as it is an actual mail delivery service.
As the guy above you pointed out, the postal workers union exists, and would fight this tooth and nail. Additionally, without legislation forcing it, management at USPS doesn't really have any incentive or ability to fire 1/2 to 4/5ths of their workers, those saved tax dollars don't really matter to them.
As much as I agree it could be made much more efficient, doing so would probably be very unpopular politically. For as often as people have negative experiences with the USPS, no one wants to see their friendly neighborhood post carrier (who walks around in a fun outfit dropping off letters and packages to them) get canned.
>A big thing they could do for costs is reduce mail delivery to the final destination to once or twice a week.
With all due respect, fuck off with that shit. The Postal Service is a Constitutionally mandated utility network substrate, and it's ability to get packages from one end of the States to the other reliably is already suffering. As someone who has been shipping things recently, I'm damn well tired of having to resend things due to spoilage/mis routing/etc...
There is a certain regularity with which operations should execute in order to be functional, and we're really behind in interstate shipping.
And to be frank, everywhere should be similarly burdened with pre-funding pensions/health benefits.
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