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>TuSimple and the USPS declined to disclose the cost of the program, but Frum said no tax dollars were used and the agency relies on revenue from sales of posta

• kevin_b_er 7y ago
  Its a common misconception, and it is driven by political interests that want to dismantle public services and replace them with more expensive services that have a profit margin for themselves attached.
  • Consultant32452 7y ago
    For me it's not a misconception. 99.99% of things delivered by USPS are spam at my house. I don't even get paper statements for any of my bills. 100% of things delivered by UPS/FedEx/etc are useful things I want to get. Every time I go to the mailbox is an encouragement to get rid of the USPS. My life would literally be better if USPS didn't exist.
    • freehunter 7y ago
      Cool, we'll destroy a public service that hundreds of millions of people rely on just so we don't inconvenience you any further.
      • deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
      • Consultant32452 7y ago
        Hundreds of millions of people are forced to rely on it. I can't be the only person who sees the primary role of the USPS is to deliver garbage to my front yard. The benefit of UPS/FedEx is if they start leaving garbage in my front yard, I can sue them for littering. If the USPS goes away there will be a very short adjustment period when private organizations and official government changes its mailing practices, but it will all be fine. I'm willing to make a compromise where the federal government can require that regular (weekly?) mail delivery be available everywhere in the country, and if it's not available from private sources the government can create one. So if you're in the boonies of the northern most territory of Alaska, you'll get weekly mail or something delivered by government subsidized mail service.
    • mtberatwork 7y ago
      > 99.99% of things delivered by USPS are spam at my house. How is that the fault of the USPS? Mail "spam" wouldn't go away if UPS/FedEx took over the postal service via privatization.
      • seanmcdirmid 7y ago
        I've heard of people blaming socialism for spam, and the answer is to privatize the USPS...as if more capitalism would solve the problem. I don't get that kind of logic at all.
      • Consultant32452 7y ago
        I'm required to facilitate the USPS's delivery of this spam by maintaining a box in my yard if I want to ever get anything from them at all. If UPS/FedEx start leaving garbage in my yard I can sue them for littering on my private property.
    • deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    • mindslight 7y ago
      USPS delivers packages too. You're either not looking closely enough at the shipping labels or you don't order from a variety of merchants. In general, USPS seems to make sense for smaller businesses that ship small packages. There is also MailInnovations/SmartPost where UPS/Fedex dumps packages at the local "inefficient" post office for last mile delivery. Raising the lowest price for sending junk mail to the prices of UPSFedex would certainly reduce spam, but this has nothing to do with how the services are governed. FWIW it appears you're free to individually act on your desire: https://www.quora.com/U-S-Postal-Service-Do-I-legally-have-to-have-a-mailbox https://www.quora.com/U-S-Postal-Service-Do-I-legally-have-t...
      • Consultant32452 7y ago
        You advocate for regulating the USPS to reduce the delivery of SPAM if you want. I'm happy to just see them disappear. Why should I care to have government regulate a service provider into providing a better service when a better service already exists? In practical terms I cannot stop having a mailbox, because a few times a year a check or something comes in the mail. That means I would have to go get my mail from the post office every so often and go through it all. So all that's accomplished is I have to drive a few miles down the road to pick up my USPS garbage instead of having the garbage delivered into my front yard. If the USPS didn't exist at all, everyone (businesses, official government notifications, etc) would switch to the better service providers like UPS/FedEx.
        • mindslight 7y ago
          What is this better service that delivers letters for around the current clearing price (< $1) and prevents/polices spam? AFAIK Fedex is around $30, which is the overwhelming reason spammers don't use them.
          • Consultant32452 7y ago
            FedEx letter is $7-10. http://www.costhowmuch.com/ps/fedex-letter.htm http://www.costhowmuch.com/ps/fedex-letter.htm Of course, that comes with a guaranteed delivery date, insurance, tracking, etc. I'm sure the private carriers would charge more than the USPS if they were servicing the lowest end mail, but currently the USPS is monopolizing that. Also important to note that the USPS is subsidized by the spam they deliver which primarily winds up in the landfill. If the USPS wasn't filling everyone's garbage bin with bulk rubbish every day, their clearing price would be closer to private shippers. To put a scale on that, I have one trash can in my house that is at my desk and only winds up getting garbage mail tossed in it. Every two weeks I have a 13 gallon garbage bag full of mail garbage. What is the time-cost of every household in my city dealing with that much extra junk? What is the environmental cost?
• zaroth 7y ago
  A valuable service which they charge money for, and should generate revenue to cover their costs. Pension funding politics aside, I want to pay USPS postage fees which cover the cost of the service they provide. There’s no reason to be paying below cost postage to USPS. I find that their rates are extremely competitive, particularly priority mail flat rate compared to UPS or FedEx. I think the post office could be doing a lot more digital services in 2020 and I’d love to see a lot less junk mail, it would be nice if they could centralize the opt-outs.
  • servercobra 7y ago
    But isn't the junk mail where they make a ton of their money?
    • kingnothing 7y ago
      I'd be willing to pay to not receive it.
      • Retra 7y ago
        I would too, but I would never support that as an official policy option, due to the extortion angle.
  • freehunter 7y ago
    You can't put aside the pension funding politics but still want to pay the USPS more, since the price of postage fees is set by federal law and must be approved by Congress. The reason you pay below cost to the USPS is because Congress demands it.
    • noer 7y ago
      The other part about increasing postage is that people are asked to pay more, but they don't necessarily see an improvement in the service that comes with the postage. I think about this a lot with public transit too, what a lot of people pay at the farebox doesn't necessarily cover the cost of the ride.
• freehunter 7y ago
  >I have no idea why people think the USPS is this giant wasteful pit of money in the federal budget A concentrated disinformation campaign funded by people who stand to benefit from privatizing mail delivery. It started with the mandate to pre-fund pension and healthcare benefits for the next 75 years, funding pensions for retired employees who aren't even born yet. That means by federal mandate, the USPS is sitting on $400 billion that they can't touch [1]. That's not all bad in and of itself, but they're also limited by law on what they can charge for stamps, and the federal review board doesn't always let them increase prices to keep up with costs [2]. The same group of people who forced the USPS into an precedented fiscal nightmare are the same people going on TV and telling you that the USPS is fiscally irresponsible and a waste of money and should be privatized. Not a big surprise that Rep Tom Davis III was the author of the bill passed in 2006 but in 2004 FedEx was one of his biggest campaign contributors. [1] https://www.uspsoig.gov/blog/be-careful-what-you-assume https://www.uspsoig.gov/blog/be-careful-what-you-assume [2] https://www.cnbc.com/id/39439918 https://www.cnbc.com/id/39439918 [3] https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/109/hr6407 https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/109/hr6407 [4] https://www.opensecrets.org/members-of-congress/contributors?cid=N00002045&cycle=2004&type=I https://www.opensecrets.org/members-of-congress/contributors...
  • fjp 7y ago
    This is happening everywhere with all kinds of government services. "Slash budgets" and by firing full time employees and cutting investment, piecemeal it out to the lowest-bid contractor, the quality of service deteriorates, not much money is actually saved, but someone gets rich(er)!
    • freehunter 7y ago
      And when the service fails, you can point to it as the reason government solutions don't work and how regulation is bad, which provides convenient reasoning to strip more regulations and privatize more government services.
      • the-dude 7y ago
• rmrfrmrf 7y ago
  I didn't even know until about a month ago that the USPS is one of the only constitutionally-mandated federal institutions (in school, we focused a lot on the Bill of Rights, not so much on the articles themselves).
  • 0xffff2 7y ago
    I don't think this is quite right. The Postal Clause give congress the power to establish the USPS. It doesn't mandate that they do so. If Congress decided the USPS was no longer necessary (not a position I advocate), they would be well within their rights to pass a law abolishing it.
• skookumchuck 7y ago
  The purpose of the mail (or any business) is not employing people.
• wnevets 7y ago
  > I have no idea why people think the USPS is this giant wasteful pit of money in the federal budget Because republicans have spent decades trying to kill it. Before the post office was forced to pay pensions fund up front by republicans [1] it was self sustainable. https://www.cnbc.com/id/45018432 https://www.cnbc.com/id/45018432
  • Velchronus 7y ago
    This is a meme with no basis in reality. > Because republicans have spent decades trying to kill it. Before the post office was forced to pay pensions fund up front by republicans [1] it was self sustainable. The PAEA was passed unanimously in both chambers of Congress and with the support of two of the employee unions. source: https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/109/hr6407 https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/109/hr6407 The pre-funding period ended in 2017 -- Current retirees are paid from this fund. Since the USPS missed the majority of its payments to the PRHB, the fund is currently running deficits and will be depleted by 2030. source: https://www.gao.gov/assets/700/694188.pdf https://www.gao.gov/assets/700/694188.pdf That means that even if it was "Pay As You Go", it would not be self sustainable.
    • Obi_Juan_Kenobi 7y ago
      Where does your first source list the votes or state the support of employee unions?
      • Velchronus 7y ago
        The first source has a history section that details the Senate and House votes. There is no record of the votes because it was passed by unanimous consent in the Senate and without challenge in the House. The NALC actually deleted their page in support of the legislation but luckily it's archived: https://web.archive.org/web/20130805121847/https://www.nalc.org/postal/reform/paea_2006.html https://web.archive.org/web/20130805121847/https://www.nalc.... > Thanks to NALC and a coalition of other unions (the Rural Letter Carriers and the Mail Handlers), management associations, vendors and mailers, Congress rejected almost all the negative recommendations of President Bush’s blue-ribbon Commission on the Postal Service. Instead it crafted a balanced compromise that emphasized pragmatism over ideology. > Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Sen. Tom Carper (D-DE) were instrumental in negotiating the final details with Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), the bill’s chief sponsor in the Senate. In an e-Activist message sent on December 9, NALC President Bill Young thanked Waxman and Carper for advocating NALC’s interests in the legislation. He also thanked Sens. Joe Lieberman (D-CT) and Daniel Akaka (D-HI), and Reps. Tom Davis (R-VA), Danny Davis (D-IL) and John McHugh (R-NY) for their roles over the years.