Standard playbook. Strip away funding then wait and tell everyone how horrible it operates and how government is the problem, so you can privatize it and your friends/lobbyists/foreign actors can take advantage/profit of/from it.
Yup. Don’t know why people fall for it.
Because it has always been easier to sell fear and derision, than togetherness and cooperation. It usually takes an outside threat to make people work together. This is also part of the playbook of the government is the problem, unless its the DoD.
I imagine that the USPS will limp along until the Boomers age out of existence, at which point the USPS will follow them out of existence.
Or… The same boomers that tried to “drown it (government) in the bathtub” - Grover Norquist… will finally be gone and the USPS can actually innovate and compete in 2026 instead of 1986.
We are after all discussing a group of people who are still fearful of online banking and ATM machines.
The USPS could be profitable if not hamstrung by absurd restrictions, drafted before any of us were born.
This boomer is neither pro or con about drowning government. ( Particular government employees, OTOH,…that would probably be a violation of forum rules )
IMHO, the following is necessary before any other decisions about drowning are implemented: (bolding mine)
September 17, 1787 → Today… 200+ years without having to decide.
Do we really? Or is it just another ploy for an adjacent ideological goal?
They changed it from being a publicly funded social service in 1970.
It wasn’t 200 years of hybrid, it’s not even been 60 yet.
Sounds to me like someone decided back in 1970.
No, they made it a hybrid model in 1970, and that’s the thing that isn’t working.
Someone now needs to say “clearly this change didn’t work” and make a real decision.
We should, as a society, be willing to admit when things we did before were wrong, and take the steps necessary to make sure we do them right later.
I assert the people wanting to privatize and profit off of it will make that decision moot.
100% agree. Sadly, we have large groups of people that will gladly trade doing societal things right, for personal profit or simple selfishness.
The architect of that change is well known.
His politics are well known. He headed one of our major political parties. He then became Postmaster General.
USPS is currently less important to this country than any time since the USPO was created. And will never be as important as it was.
The Danes recently discontinued letter delivery. How long before the next country follows their lead? And the next and the next?
If USPS has any value it is its parcel delivery operations, which would probably be viable if they did not have to support the letter delivery relic.
Denmark had seen a 90% drop in letter delivery, plus their state postal service had already merged with Sweden’s in 2009. AND as PostNord said, they are already one of the most digitized nations in the world. AND AND Danish law requires that its citizens have a way to mail letters, so while the state has appointed a private service for this purpose for now, it is still the government’s responsibility to provide letter delivery. (Danish postal service to stop delivering letters after 400 years | Denmark | The Guardian)
So it’s an apples to Danishes comparison. Surely (SURELY 
) other countries would be wise enough to asses their own weaknesses, infrastructure gaps, and differences in usages before jumping off the letter delivery bridge just because someone else did it.
And…now I want an apple danish
Let’s not forget Denmark has ~85% of its ~6M population in urban areas. We have MT, NE, SD, AK, NV…etc.
USPS handles about 50% of our parcel volume because they are significantly less expensive than other carriers, often by as much as 40%, and the service isn’t significantly worse.
We then split 40% UPS and then 10% FedEx - FedEx’s expedited mail services are just so much cheaper because of their One Rate program.
We don’t have a special pricing deal with the USPS, either. If it’s under 3 lbs, it’s probably going by the USPS.
That’s easy. Do away with the requirement to fund retirement funds for future employees who haven’t even been born yet!
AND…Allow the USPS to offer additional community services, like check cashing, additional packaging/printers with USPS label integration, local vendor sales kiosks.
The creation of an app that allowed for local pickup and/or delivery of packages the same day for small mid size communities. Floral delivery, prescriptions, etc, just like Amazon, FedEx, do with the Relay program. Drop off by 6am and last mile delivery the same day.
Notary