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I love the post office so much and I’ve written a lot about it. It’s one of the weirdest little gigantic agencies that originated from the constitution
Article I, Sec. 8, Clause 7.
empowers Congress "To establish Post Offices and Post Roads".
empowers Congress "To establish Post Offices and Post Roads".
This was my latest.
https://www.rollcall.com/2018/12/20/postal-service-prayer-deliver-us-from-fiscal-doom/
Here’s a small lineup of the issues.
https://www.rollcall.com/2018/12/20/postal-service-prayer-deliver-us-from-fiscal-doom/
Here’s a small lineup of the issues.
A thing you need to remember is the SCALE of postal service costs are so small in the context of the major things Congress grapples with, it falls by the wayside as a major issue time and again in must-pass spending debates, and it also costs relatively little to do a lot.
It becomes a proxy for Big Government Debates
as a result. It’s also a big workforce. Really rough estimates and they’re out of date it’s like 500k of a 2M overall federal workforce. But there’s also about 125k contractors maybe more now, that was in fiscal 2018.
as a result. It’s also a big workforce. Really rough estimates and they’re out of date it’s like 500k of a 2M overall federal workforce. But there’s also about 125k contractors maybe more now, that was in fiscal 2018.
The problem is super difficult to solve. Letter mail used to take the place of email. Their systems are old in so many ways. Now packages are the thing and federal mandates make it harder for the service to turn a profit. So it gets pointed at as an unreasonable cost.
Others say it should just be provided as a service, pointing to the constitution. But when your argument is right that means so many things. As a result any reform has foundered.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/postal-service-warns-of-22-billion-hole-from-coronavirus-11586463104 the situation now is the stimulus gave them $10 billion. given that the service was told to pay off its debt heading into this pandemic & wasn’t putting that $ into things like trucks and people, which exacerbated under strain. This isn’t surprising.
The essential thing the postal service debate has taught me is this. Congress has been freaking out over the USPS hitting a $15B debt limit for years now. It’s made it harder for the agency to prefund retirement as a result which makes its balance sheet a mess.
Congress just passed $2T stimulus w/ debt at $24 trillion ish depending on how you count? Just for scale:
$15B= maxiumum allowable usps debt.
that’s .0006 of the problem.
$15B= maxiumum allowable usps debt.
that’s .0006 of the problem.
welcome to being interested in the postal service.
Don’t be fooled about the scale of the problem or the Congress’s ability to solve it money wise. But politically, it’s been an albatross forever and I expect the debate to fully reflect that. /end.
Don’t be fooled about the scale of the problem or the Congress’s ability to solve it money wise. But politically, it’s been an albatross forever and I expect the debate to fully reflect that. /end.
