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Incredibly frustrating to get mail by USPS over the past couple months and even more frustrating to know this is an intentional kneecapping of the USPS by the a

Incredibly frustrating to get mail by USPS over the past couple months and even more frustrating to know this is an intentional kneecapping of the USPS by the administration in order "prove" government services are inefficient to privatize the USPS

betweeds 6y ago
Boy, it sure is coincidental timing that Trump appointed a new Postmaster General two months ago that immediately changed policies to prohibit overtime needed to get mail delivered, just as we're about to have an election that will see large parts of the country having to vote by mail. Now if only Trump could get his supporters to not rely on voting by mail, such as by playing up the message that the Coronavirus is not a big deal and that everyone just needs to go back to work and school and that they'll be fine by the time they need to get out and vote in person.
- jrobn 6y ago
  You’re being downvoted because it’s the inconvenient truth.
skybrian 6y ago
Demand is way up due to the pandemic. Amazon hired 175,000 temporary workers to keep up with demand [1]. All the Trump adminstration had to do to cause a problem was not hire any extra help and disallow overtime. [1] https://www.marketwatch.com/story/amazon-reaches-1-million-workers-as-pandemic-pushes-total-up-11596136565 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/amazon-reaches-1-million-w...
- arp242 6y ago
  A business[1] getting in to financial trouble because of massive increase in customers is indeed a curious affair. [1]: Which the USPS is not, but let's be flexible with the term.
throwaway5752 6y ago
Its not a point about government effectiveness or efficiency. They kneecapped the USPS when they forced prefunding of pension liabilities (https://www.cnbc.com/2011/10/24/the-truth-about-the-post-offices-financial-mess.html https://www.cnbc.com/2011/10/24/the-truth-about-the-post-off...). They had more legislative leverage prior to 2018, so they could have done all this much earlier. It is not possible to honestly discuss this in a meaningful way without acknowledging it's 3 months out from a presidential election. It the closest thing they can legally do to suppress voting turnout, and it's a deliberate strategy to win the election by reducing the franchise. This isn't in a vacuum either, it's a coordinated part of a national legislative strategy (https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/04/exposing-alec-how-conservative-backed-state-laws-are-all-connected/255869/ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/04/exposin...). It is coordinated across at the state and federal levels, and across branches. You can see here with the intentional degrading of the USPS immediately prior to a national election, at a state level with polling place closures (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-locations/southern-us-states-have-closed-1200-polling-places-in-recent-years-rights-group-idUSKCN1VV09J https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-locations/so...) and photo id laws (https://www.aclu.org/other/oppose-voter-id-legislation-fact-sheet https://www.aclu.org/other/oppose-voter-id-legislation-fact-...), and constellation of Republican judicial appointments coordinated with specially prepared and crafted legal challenges by Republican AGs and private parties at state and circuit levels. This is how it's being done: https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/investigations/leonard-leo-federalists-society-courts https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/investigations/...
- lotsofpulp 6y ago
  Retirement benefits should be funded as they are accrued. That is not the problem. The problem is the USPS doesn’t have the power to price their products appropriately in order to pay for their expenses (including payroll which includes retirement benefits). If anything, all entities promising retirement benefits should be forced to do it the way USPS does. In fact, non government entities were forced to via the Pension Protection Act of 2006, which is why non government employers stopped offering defined benefit pensions and other post employment benefits (OPEB) as they are simply not affordable. Too bad it didn’t apply to governments, because if it did, then my kids and I wouldn’t be stuck paying for labor performed 30+ years ago because all the city and state governments decided they can just promise to pay people with future taxpayers’ money by underfunding defined benefit pension plans and retiree healthcare benefits.
KorematsuFred 6y ago
USPS has a government granted monopoly on letter delivery end it and these problems will also go away.
- ghaff 6y ago
  Yes and no. It has a government granted monopoly on relatively inexpensive but relatively fast letter delivery. I can certainly send a letter overnight by FedEx if I want to but it will cost a lot more and FedEx can't leave the envelope in the mailbox almost everyone has. I do tend to think the USPS should be allowed to increase their rates to sustainable levels. Individuals are not nearly as dependent on being able to regularly send letters across the country for well under a dollar as they once were.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- zanny 6y ago
  Is there a legitimate law on the books that Fedex et al cannot legally deliver letters, or is it just that subsidized postage stamps are so cheap no private company can profit off paper mail delivery? Because letters are paper but so are magazines, newspapers, etc that I know are delivered by non-USPS mail carriers. It isn't a very persuasive argument to destroy cheap post for the masses to... let investors make money. As it is if usps was incapable of fulfilling its duty private entities could enter the market at way higher prices and if useful would see business.
  - donw 6y ago
    > Is there a legitimate law on the books that Fedex et al cannot legally deliver letters. I just learned this, but yes, that appears to be the case! The private express statutes[1] appear to do just that. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_Express_Statutes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_Express_Statutes
  - missedthecue 6y ago
    The USPS actually has two legally enforced monopolies, as per Title 39 of the US Code. One is over the delivery of anything defined as a “letter,” which is within certain size and weight limits. The second is over the use of your mailbox. That is correct: there are criminal violations if anyone puts anything in your mail box that is not US government approved “mail.”
thereare5lights 6y ago
It’s not about privatizing the service, it’s about disrupting their ability to process mail in ballots for the election. If they wanted to privatize it, they could have don’t it at any time during the past four years.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > It’s not about privatizing the service, Yes it is. > it’s about disrupting their ability to process mail in ballots for the election. True, but those are complementary not mutually exclsuive motivations.
  - jrobn 6y ago
    That’s like saying genocide is ok because we need to decrease our population. They are mutual exclusive motivations.
    - eropple 6y ago
      He isn't saying it's okay.
      - jrobn 6y ago
        He’s trying to justify that it is okay because it’s about privatization...months before a crucial election year. Doesn’t make sense. It’s gaslighting.
        aarpmcgee 6y ago
        Are we reading the same comment?
        happytoexplain 6y ago
        You're looking for an enemy where there is none.
        deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
callmeal 6y ago
>an intentional kneecapping of the USPS by the administration You mean the republicans. There's only one political party out to prove government services do not work by intentionally destroying those institutions. And whitewashing that by using whataboutism and using weasel words like "congress" and "adminstration" will just keep things going the way they are.
- missedthecue 6y ago
  The simplest argument against government run services is that eventually, the people you don't like will be in charge of them
  - sixstringtheory 6y ago
    The simplest counterpoint to this is that government allows accountability. You will have those same people you don’t like running private enterprise, but CEOs have much longer terms than postmasters general.
    - luckylion 6y ago
      You can usually switch to a different company when you're not happy with the work they do, it's much harder to switch to a different state.
      - sixstringtheory 6y ago
        As long as you have term limits, you don’t have to move states/countries to get different leaders, you vote.
        missedthecue 6y ago
        Voting is not a good way to get what you want. Your vote will have essentially no impact on the outcome of the election. My choice to go with this provider or that one has 100% of an impact on me. There is no creative destruction going on with the USPS.
qserasera 6y ago
I agree that this was a kneecapping and completely disagree that we need to privatize the USPS. Current administration has gained the ability to raise the price for packages coming in from China[1] and it has tried to charge Amazon more using USPS by witholding a federal 10 billion loan[2]. There are many more instances that reliably indicate the USPS recieves consistent hostility from the federal government. [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/25/postal-compromise-close-as-us-pushes-global-mail-reforms-amazon-fedex-impact.html https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/25/postal-compromise-close-as-u... [2] https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/trump-postal-service-charge-amazon-loan-70336387 https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/trump-postal-service-cha...
stjohnswarts 6y ago
It's a double prong attack on the USPS via saying they can't handle mail, let alone all the mail in ballots as well as an attempt to bankrupt them before the election to keep it in court for a while as well as give the Trump base an out and say "I told ya so"

betweeds 6y ago

Boy, it sure is coincidental timing that Trump appointed a new Postmaster General two months ago that immediately changed policies to prohibit overtime needed to get mail delivered, just as we're about to have an election that will see large parts of the country having to vote by mail. Now if only Trump could get his supporters to not rely on voting by mail, such as by playing up the message that the Coronavirus is not a big deal and that everyone just needs to go back to work and school and that they'll be fine by the time they need to get out and vote in person.

jrobn 6y ago
You’re being downvoted because it’s the inconvenient truth.

skybrian 6y ago

Demand is way up due to the pandemic. Amazon hired 175,000 temporary workers to keep up with demand [1]. All the Trump adminstration had to do to cause a problem was not hire any extra help and disallow overtime. [1] https://www.marketwatch.com/story/amazon-reaches-1-million-workers-as-pandemic-pushes-total-up-11596136565 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/amazon-reaches-1-million-w...

arp242 6y ago
A business[1] getting in to financial trouble because of massive increase in customers is indeed a curious affair. [1]: Which the USPS is not, but let's be flexible with the term.

throwaway5752 6y ago

Its not a point about government effectiveness or efficiency. They kneecapped the USPS when they forced prefunding of pension liabilities (https://www.cnbc.com/2011/10/24/the-truth-about-the-post-offices-financial-mess.html https://www.cnbc.com/2011/10/24/the-truth-about-the-post-off...). They had more legislative leverage prior to 2018, so they could have done all this much earlier. It is not possible to honestly discuss this in a meaningful way without acknowledging it's 3 months out from a presidential election. It the closest thing they can legally do to suppress voting turnout, and it's a deliberate strategy to win the election by reducing the franchise. This isn't in a vacuum either, it's a coordinated part of a national legislative strategy (https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/04/exposing-alec-how-conservative-backed-state-laws-are-all-connected/255869/ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/04/exposin...). It is coordinated across at the state and federal levels, and across branches. You can see here with the intentional degrading of the USPS immediately prior to a national election, at a state level with polling place closures (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-locations/southern-us-states-have-closed-1200-polling-places-in-recent-years-rights-group-idUSKCN1VV09J https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-locations/so...) and photo id laws (https://www.aclu.org/other/oppose-voter-id-legislation-fact-sheet https://www.aclu.org/other/oppose-voter-id-legislation-fact-...), and constellation of Republican judicial appointments coordinated with specially prepared and crafted legal challenges by Republican AGs and private parties at state and circuit levels. This is how it's being done: https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/investigations/leonard-leo-federalists-society-courts https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/investigations/...

lotsofpulp 6y ago
Retirement benefits should be funded as they are accrued. That is not the problem. The problem is the USPS doesn’t have the power to price their products appropriately in order to pay for their expenses (including payroll which includes retirement benefits). If anything, all entities promising retirement benefits should be forced to do it the way USPS does. In fact, non government entities were forced to via the Pension Protection Act of 2006, which is why non government employers stopped offering defined benefit pensions and other post employment benefits (OPEB) as they are simply not affordable. Too bad it didn’t apply to governments, because if it did, then my kids and I wouldn’t be stuck paying for labor performed 30+ years ago because all the city and state governments decided they can just promise to pay people with future taxpayers’ money by underfunding defined benefit pension plans and retiree healthcare benefits.

KorematsuFred 6y ago

USPS has a government granted monopoly on letter delivery end it and these problems will also go away.

ghaff 6y ago
Yes and no. It has a government granted monopoly on relatively inexpensive but relatively fast letter delivery. I can certainly send a letter overnight by FedEx if I want to but it will cost a lot more and FedEx can't leave the envelope in the mailbox almost everyone has. I do tend to think the USPS should be allowed to increase their rates to sustainable levels. Individuals are not nearly as dependent on being able to regularly send letters across the country for well under a dollar as they once were.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
zanny 6y ago
Is there a legitimate law on the books that Fedex et al cannot legally deliver letters, or is it just that subsidized postage stamps are so cheap no private company can profit off paper mail delivery? Because letters are paper but so are magazines, newspapers, etc that I know are delivered by non-USPS mail carriers. It isn't a very persuasive argument to destroy cheap post for the masses to... let investors make money. As it is if usps was incapable of fulfilling its duty private entities could enter the market at way higher prices and if useful would see business.
- donw 6y ago
  > Is there a legitimate law on the books that Fedex et al cannot legally deliver letters. I just learned this, but yes, that appears to be the case! The private express statutes[1] appear to do just that. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_Express_Statutes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_Express_Statutes
- missedthecue 6y ago
  The USPS actually has two legally enforced monopolies, as per Title 39 of the US Code. One is over the delivery of anything defined as a “letter,” which is within certain size and weight limits. The second is over the use of your mailbox. That is correct: there are criminal violations if anyone puts anything in your mail box that is not US government approved “mail.”

thereare5lights 6y ago

It’s not about privatizing the service, it’s about disrupting their ability to process mail in ballots for the election. If they wanted to privatize it, they could have don’t it at any time during the past four years.

dragonwriter 6y ago
> It’s not about privatizing the service, Yes it is. > it’s about disrupting their ability to process mail in ballots for the election. True, but those are complementary not mutually exclsuive motivations.
- jrobn 6y ago
  That’s like saying genocide is ok because we need to decrease our population. They are mutual exclusive motivations.
  - eropple 6y ago
    He isn't saying it's okay.
    - jrobn 6y ago
      He’s trying to justify that it is okay because it’s about privatization...months before a crucial election year. Doesn’t make sense. It’s gaslighting.
      - aarpmcgee 6y ago
        Are we reading the same comment?
      - happytoexplain 6y ago
        You're looking for an enemy where there is none.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]

callmeal 6y ago

>an intentional kneecapping of the USPS by the administration You mean the republicans. There's only one political party out to prove government services do not work by intentionally destroying those institutions. And whitewashing that by using whataboutism and using weasel words like "congress" and "adminstration" will just keep things going the way they are.

missedthecue 6y ago
The simplest argument against government run services is that eventually, the people you don't like will be in charge of them
- sixstringtheory 6y ago
  The simplest counterpoint to this is that government allows accountability. You will have those same people you don’t like running private enterprise, but CEOs have much longer terms than postmasters general.
  - luckylion 6y ago
    You can usually switch to a different company when you're not happy with the work they do, it's much harder to switch to a different state.
    - sixstringtheory 6y ago
      As long as you have term limits, you don’t have to move states/countries to get different leaders, you vote.
      - missedthecue 6y ago
        Voting is not a good way to get what you want. Your vote will have essentially no impact on the outcome of the election. My choice to go with this provider or that one has 100% of an impact on me. There is no creative destruction going on with the USPS.

qserasera 6y ago

I agree that this was a kneecapping and completely disagree that we need to privatize the USPS. Current administration has gained the ability to raise the price for packages coming in from China[1] and it has tried to charge Amazon more using USPS by witholding a federal 10 billion loan[2]. There are many more instances that reliably indicate the USPS recieves consistent hostility from the federal government. [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/25/postal-compromise-close-as-us-pushes-global-mail-reforms-amazon-fedex-impact.html https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/25/postal-compromise-close-as-u... [2] https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/trump-postal-service-charge-amazon-loan-70336387 https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/trump-postal-service-cha...

stjohnswarts 6y ago

It's a double prong attack on the USPS via saying they can't handle mail, let alone all the mail in ballots as well as an attempt to bankrupt them before the election to keep it in court for a while as well as give the Trump base an out and say "I told ya so"