7 ms·

If the USPS is getting lots of business, why would they need more funding? The issue here is simply a temporary Coronavirus situation combined with how the USP

If the USPS is getting lots of business, why would they need more funding? The issue here is simply a temporary Coronavirus situation combined with how the USPS runs their business.

lexicality 6y ago
John Oliver did an interesting video on this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IoL8g0W9gAQ&t=4s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IoL8g0W9gAQ&t=4s TL;DR: Deliberate government action to defund them has resulted in them having way less money than you would expect.
- nemacol 6y ago
  It has been a while since I have seen that one, but if I recall the two main points were 1 - Forced to save billions over a short period of time for retirements benefits. 2 - Inability to set their own prices, like a business would. The extra business from Amazon should have been a massive boon to USPS. But it seems the ridiculously low rate they got into, plus the couple factors above (and I am sure many others - like being required to maintain rural routes at a loss) has put them in a bad situation.
  - nybble41 6y ago
    They should just spin off the USPS as a purely private enterprise—no more monopoly on letter delivery or bureaucratic micromanagement regarding prices—and instead periodically solicit bids from all the carriers (including the former USPS) for the core services. Whoever wins the bid would commit to flat-rate nationwide delivery of first-class letters and receive a negotiated subsidy for each delivery depending on the route.
michaelmcdonald 6y ago
Did you not read the part about how they have to fund their retirees health program up through 2054? That's millions to billions of dollars that they have to set aside for potential future costs decades away. No other government program or service is required to do this.
- SamReidHughes 6y ago
  Did you not read the part where they only have to prefund accrued benefits? Oh wait, the article didn't include that part, did it.
  - addicted 6y ago
    Source?
    - soldierof4chan 6y ago
      The bill itself describes the funding schedule: https://www.congress.gov/bill/109th-congress/house-bill/6407 https://www.congress.gov/bill/109th-congress/house-bill/6407 Regardless, the “pre-funding” period is over and the fund is running a deficit as retirees are currently paid from it, so it’s a moot point.
      - addicted 6y ago
        “ Establishes in the Treasury the Postal Service Retiree Health Benefits Fund, to be administered by OPM. Requires the Postal Service, beginning in 2007, to compute the net present value of the future payments required and attributable to the service of Postal Service employees during the most recently ended fiscal year” Compute the net present value of future payments does not sound like “accrued” benefits at all. It sounds like future payments which is the opposite of accrued benefits. I don’t know the details of USPS’s finances, but reading that bill it seems they basically got rid of pensions around 2007 “ Postal Civil Service Retirement and Health Benefits Funding Amendments of 2006 - (Sec. 802) Relieves the Postal Service of an obligation to contribute matching amounts to its employees' civil service retirement.” but required that all existing pensions be prefunded. That’s an extremely onerous requirement and whether the fund has been funded or not, it will still affect service drastically. Even if the fund has been paid off it’s not a moot point because that’s potentially billions of dollars that they cannot use to fund service and instead is waiting in an account somewhere to be used decades from now.
ogre_codes 6y ago
They can’t set their own rates and have an obligation to deliver everything, which leads to them shipping many things (not just Amazon) for free. There is no other country in the world, no other private business that lets you send first class letters for $0.60 for a reason. For years they were also wrangled into a treaty obligation that forced them to ship small packages from China for a loss. They also have huge retirement —prefunding obligations which is pretty much unprecedented in either private business or government agencies. All of these public obligations are poorly thought out and largely out of the control of the USPS itself. People bitch about USPS being inefficiently run and that’s true to some extent, but the most fundamental issues they struggle with revolve around factors beyond the control of USPS management.
- missedthecue 6y ago
  >but the most fundamental issues they struggle with revolve around factors beyond the control of USPS management. In other words, they are inefficient.

If the USPS is getting lots of business, why would they need more funding? The issue here is simply a temporary Coronavirus situation combined with how the USPS runs their business.

lexicality 6y ago

John Oliver did an interesting video on this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IoL8g0W9gAQ&t=4s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IoL8g0W9gAQ&t=4s TL;DR: Deliberate government action to defund them has resulted in them having way less money than you would expect.

nemacol 6y ago
It has been a while since I have seen that one, but if I recall the two main points were 1 - Forced to save billions over a short period of time for retirements benefits. 2 - Inability to set their own prices, like a business would. The extra business from Amazon should have been a massive boon to USPS. But it seems the ridiculously low rate they got into, plus the couple factors above (and I am sure many others - like being required to maintain rural routes at a loss) has put them in a bad situation.
- nybble41 6y ago
  They should just spin off the USPS as a purely private enterprise—no more monopoly on letter delivery or bureaucratic micromanagement regarding prices—and instead periodically solicit bids from all the carriers (including the former USPS) for the core services. Whoever wins the bid would commit to flat-rate nationwide delivery of first-class letters and receive a negotiated subsidy for each delivery depending on the route.

michaelmcdonald 6y ago

Did you not read the part about how they have to fund their retirees health program up through 2054? That's millions to billions of dollars that they have to set aside for potential future costs decades away. No other government program or service is required to do this.

SamReidHughes 6y ago
Did you not read the part where they only have to prefund accrued benefits? Oh wait, the article didn't include that part, did it.
- addicted 6y ago
  Source?
  - soldierof4chan 6y ago
    The bill itself describes the funding schedule: https://www.congress.gov/bill/109th-congress/house-bill/6407 https://www.congress.gov/bill/109th-congress/house-bill/6407 Regardless, the “pre-funding” period is over and the fund is running a deficit as retirees are currently paid from it, so it’s a moot point.
    - addicted 6y ago
      “ Establishes in the Treasury the Postal Service Retiree Health Benefits Fund, to be administered by OPM. Requires the Postal Service, beginning in 2007, to compute the net present value of the future payments required and attributable to the service of Postal Service employees during the most recently ended fiscal year” Compute the net present value of future payments does not sound like “accrued” benefits at all. It sounds like future payments which is the opposite of accrued benefits. I don’t know the details of USPS’s finances, but reading that bill it seems they basically got rid of pensions around 2007 “ Postal Civil Service Retirement and Health Benefits Funding Amendments of 2006 - (Sec. 802) Relieves the Postal Service of an obligation to contribute matching amounts to its employees' civil service retirement.” but required that all existing pensions be prefunded. That’s an extremely onerous requirement and whether the fund has been funded or not, it will still affect service drastically. Even if the fund has been paid off it’s not a moot point because that’s potentially billions of dollars that they cannot use to fund service and instead is waiting in an account somewhere to be used decades from now.

ogre_codes 6y ago

They can’t set their own rates and have an obligation to deliver everything, which leads to them shipping many things (not just Amazon) for free. There is no other country in the world, no other private business that lets you send first class letters for $0.60 for a reason. For years they were also wrangled into a treaty obligation that forced them to ship small packages from China for a loss. They also have huge retirement —prefunding obligations which is pretty much unprecedented in either private business or government agencies. All of these public obligations are poorly thought out and largely out of the control of the USPS itself. People bitch about USPS being inefficiently run and that’s true to some extent, but the most fundamental issues they struggle with revolve around factors beyond the control of USPS management.

missedthecue 6y ago
>but the most fundamental issues they struggle with revolve around factors beyond the control of USPS management. In other words, they are inefficient.