There is talk that President Trump is planning to detach the US Postal Service from taxpayers' wallets. With FedEx, UPS, etc. do we really need USPS?

[RingOfFire]

The US Postal Service is supposed to be an "independent" operation. But it has been taking more and more money paid for by you the taxpayer every year and become a wasteful, outdated and corrupt bureaucracy like most of the rest of the government. And I don't know about you but for me the more money they take from my pocket, the worse the service has gotten.

Do we really even need them? How many people do we need coming to our door every day? In the Internet age, the post office is way outdated. 90% of the mail I get is annoying junk that goes right in the garbage. There is no reason for it to be subsidized by taxpayers or be part or even quasi-part of the government.

It appears that President Trump gets it and is about to do something about it. He is apparently planning first to place it under Executive Branch command and then remove it from government so it can operate as another private company. That means it will have to compete with other delivery services and the competition will lead to better service and lower costs. And best of all IT WILL SAVE MONEY FOR TAXPAYERS!

Expect the usual corrupt deep state to go the usual ballistic as they are over President Trump breaking up all their other taxpayer scams. But you can't make an omelet without breaking some eggs first.

LET 'ER RIP!

[NoDecision]

You are wrong. The post office gets its funding from themselves, from selling stamps or it's parcel deliveries. The government hasn't funded them since 1970 with the reorganization act. The reason it is getting worse is because of all the bad supervisors they have that treat their employees like shit. Most seem like they were hired off the street and know nothing about how the post office works. Dejoy closed a lot of processing plants to try and consolidate to make things faster, but instead it did the opposite. Now mail has to go to a central plant so all the post offices in 5 states have to send their mail further. So if you mailed a letter to a city near you, instead of it just being passed between the local post offices, it has to travel 500 miles to be processed, and then 500 miles back to be delivered, when the address you were sending it to was like only 10 miles away. All this takes extra time. Also, they have a shortage of employees who want the job so they have fewer employees who then have to take on extra work. So they may be working 6 or 7 days a week and are worn out. They therefore have a high turnover rate. This is the result of Trump giving the job of PMG to Dejoy, who didn't know his ass from a hole in the ground since he didn't know how the Postal Service worked. I think Trump saw the error of assigning him the job so is getting rid of him and trying another way. But I'm guessing it will only make things worse.

[RingOfFire]

"The post office gets its funding from themselves, from selling stamps or it's parcel deliveries. The government hasn't funded them since 1970 with the reorganization act."

Nope, sorry it is you who are wrong. The Post Office has cost taxpayers tens of billions of dollars a year. It received tens of billions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies.

American taxpayers give an $18 billion gift to the post office every year
https://fortune.com/2015/03/27/us-postal-service/

Study: Postal Service Receives $18 Billion Per-Year in Monopoly Benefits
www.cagw.org/.../study-postal-service-receives-18-billion-year-monopoly-benefits

[NoDecision]

That is interesting, but if it were true, why do they still have a $Billion or more deficit a year. You would think there would be none. Any why do the postal employees not know this? They all maintain they get no money from Congress. To me it just seems like money that Congress pays out to them because they are hog tied having to adhere to Congressional mandates.

[RingOfFire]

They lose money every year for the same reason that every other department of government loses money every year and has to constantly raise taxes to try to fill the hole and still leaves the hole bigger and bigger every year: waste, fraud, abuse and corruption.

They play games with the accounting and like all these gigantic government entities they are filled with corrupt bureaucrats who are stealing the public's money because no one is watching out where the money is going.

That's why what President Trump and Elon Musk are doing is so important because they are the ONLY ONES who are actually finding out where all the trillions of dollars they are taking from taxpayers is actually going. And it's also why the bureaucrats are so intent on stopping them.

If you were stealing money from the government would you want someone looking into where the money your department was given went? The post office is no exception. It is a bloated, inefficient, wasteful organization that is stealing money from taxpayers and trying to cover it up.

[RingOfFire]

And another question. If you were honest and working for the government and had nothing to hide, wouldn't you WELCOME someone who is looking for waste, fraud and abuse to save the average American money?

[Curmudgeon]

This may be ultra hard to do, because while many Government Programs are not explicitly spelled out in the USA Constitution (and some of those are arguably NOT Constitutional at all!), the U. S. Postal Service actually *is* explicitly spelled out in The Constitution:
Article 1, Section 8: "The Congress shall have Power..."
Part 7: "... To establish Post Offices and Post Roads;"

NOTE: "Post Road" = A road designated for the transportation of mail by The U. S. Postal Service. So when you have a remote address out in the countryside with "Rural Route (number)" that was set up as a US Postal Service Road. (I suppose this was also justification for the US Route and Interstate Highway System Acts, but leave that for another day).

[RingOfFire]

Yes, but every one of the things President Trump is trying to do is hard to do. He will be successful with some and not with others. But in most if not all cases he will make massive improvements even if not getting 100% of the change he should be getting if the government is working for the people and not for itself.

And just as importantly, he has opened a door that should have been opened over 100 years ago and awakened the country to the massive corruption in Washington and the cost to the people. If he accomplished nothing else that would make him one of the greatest presidents in history.

Also, keep in mind, Trump has proven that NOTHING is impossible.

[onedarkcloud]

Make it private and make them responsible for doing the job correctly. I have watched mail being dumped in the back of parked sanitation trucks. Packages were not being delivered for days with notes in the mailbox saying no one home and yet that mail person handed me my mail less than an hour earlier. They need the proper supervision, not someone with no knowledge of the job made supervisor off the street. Make them compete with private delivery services!

[RingOfFire]

You're right. Nothing makes an organization more efficient than having to depend on pleasing their customers instead of relying on being bailed out by taxpayers when they operate at a loss.

[Anonymous]

The idea of an "independent" agency is akin to setting up a 4th or 5th branch of goverment with executive powers.

Created originally to as a means for existing executives and legislators to keep their influence into following administrations much as they do with the courts.

But this of course is unconstitutional and anti-democratic which is why it totally violates how our political system is suppose to work.

[Ladsin2]

Get rid of the rule that all other corporations in this industry have to charge 6x the rate of the USPS and they'll be gone overnight.

[RingOfFire]

Not familiar with that rule, but either way it is the free market that should be determining what it is worth to people not some authoritarian government dictate.

Could a stamp cost a little more? Sure, it's possible. But when was they last time you bought stamps? I haven't in years. I have, however, paid a fortune in taxes. I'll trade the tax cut for higher priced stamps in a heartbeat.

[Ladsin2]

Private Express Statutes date back to 1792 and require that if you want to send a letter by mail you can either 1) pay for US postage and cancel on the letter so that they're getting paid for packages they don't deliver; 2) send it as "Extremely Urgent" at a minimum of 6x the rate of 1st class postal prices; 3) you can deliver your letter yourself or have an employee do so.

[RingOfFire]

Sounds like a monopolistic law that should have been abolished centuries ago.

[Ladsin2]

It is in my opinion. The government is authorized to run the post office in the Constitution. They're also required to send mail. If you have a letter that needs to get mailed they have to send it (pretty much). The price markup is to protect the post office from only running the inefficient routes that can't turn a profit. Ie running 1 letter 100 miles away rather than 100 letters within a 1 mile radius.

[RingOfFire]

Yes, I vaguely remember hearing some of those protectionist policies.

Not likely to be Amended out of the Constitution, but hopefully they can do something to eliminate the waste, fraud and abuse that must surely be present after hundreds of years with no accountability. Every single function of government needs to be turned upside down and shaken to remove the corruption.

[Ladsin2]

Spooner in the mid 1800s started a company to directly compete with the postal service and charged 1/4 of their prices but still turned a profit. In response the government sued and shut down his company, but the government had to reduce their postal rates. It certainly may be a good time to audit the USPS.

[RingOfFire]

Good time to audit every single department of government. It's just inconceivable that there could be such a lack of accountability when Americans are giving up so much to pay their taxes.

[Pterodon]

They are outdated indeed but one thing they are is reliable. Reliability trumps a lot of things in my opinion

[RingOfFire]

Other delivery services are pretty reliable too. And if it is opened up for competition, then reliability will be one of the top priorities because that's what the customers are paying for.

There could end up being several mail service providers to choose from. And without a cost to taxpayers.

[Pterodon]

I’ll agree that competition would boost reliability

[RingOfFire]

Like all the other things Trump and Musk are doing, some will happen and some will probably not. But the very fact that they are even looking into them tells you all you need to know about who the right choice for president was.

[Pterodon]

I agree.

[Surely]

Seems like a good idea to me. Especially when junk mail gets a bulk rate cheaper than you or I can send a letter for. Don’t know the difference in postage. But I am sure that the rest of us is paying for mail that we don’t want!

[jimmy2]

Without junk mail the post office would be out of bussiness

[RingOfFire]

I'm constantly bombarded with junk mail that goes right in the garbage. Never misses a day. About a week or two ago I was supposed to receive 12 separate important letters over 2 days. I know they were sent because I have that feature from the post office that shows me pictures of the mail that's on its way to me.

Not a single one of them ever arrived.

And this is happening more and more often.

[seeyounexttuesday]

literally 95% of what I take out of the mailbox goes directly to the trash. It's all so wasteful