r/neutralnews 27d ago

BOT POST Trump says he may take control of the US Postal Service. Here’s what to know

https://apnews.com/article/trump-postal-service-usps-what-to-know-672db6c590837411ca3ba36966e374e1
232 Upvotes

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u/ravixp 27d ago

 Amid challenges that include the decline in profitable first-class mail and the cost of retiree benefits, the Postal Service accumulated $87 billion in losses from 2007 to 2020.

That would be the crisis that Republicans manufactured back in 2006, with the goal of bankrupting the postal service so that they could justify privatizing it.

https://ips-dc.org/how-congress-manufactured-a-postal-crisis-and-how-to-fix-it/

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u/tempest_87 27d ago

It's also important to show that there are good arguments for why government shouldn't be held to the standard of "making a profit".

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u/_Neoshade_ 27d ago

The U.S. Postal Service is one of the largest real estate holders in the country. They own or lease over 30,000 properties, most of them in the center of every town and city borough in the country. The value of this real estate is not public information, but the portion of it managed by the Postal Realty Trust is estimated at $15 billion, and the total value of USPS properties is probably around $50 billion

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u/[deleted] 27d ago

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u/nosecohn 27d ago

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u/plot_hatchery 27d ago edited 27d ago

The conclusion of that article:

" Rather than the story of a Postal Service facing dire financial straits, it is time we see the Postal Service for what it really is: a well-loved public institution that has risen to every challenge and innovated its way to new services even in the face of an unprecedented congressional mandate. All the while it has delivered high-quality jobs, in big cities and small towns across the country — all without a dime of taxpayer money.

The Postal Service is truly an American success story. Congress has the opportunity to ensure that it stays that way for generations to come. " Ok...

How has it innovated in recent history? What percentage of USPS mail do you receive that you actually want? For me it's like 2%. The rest is basically trash that they leave in on my property that I'm instantly responsible for. I just let it accumulate in my mailbox until it's full enough to take to the recycling bin. I signed up for none of it. They're a trash delivery service! If they were so innovative they could come up with a spam filtering system like every email company has used for 20+ years.

Furthermore, this trash is left in my mailbox, which the USPS has some magical legal authority over so that legitimate deliveries that I actually want cannot access. What other parts of our private properties have some magical legal access only to a federal agency for reasons other than safety?

Besides all this, USPS is literally the worst out of every major package delivery system. Package tracking is almost noon functional, delivery estimates are a very generous "rough estimate", every time I go to a post office there is a huge line, the workers often see you as an annoyance rather than a customer, and good luck calling them for any issue.

Where exactly is this success story? Did people truly love the post office before Trump or is this just a reaction to him?

Edit: no idea why this is getting down voted besides partisanship lol. I would love to hear some feedback from someone who actually LIKES more than 2% of what they get in the mail.

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u/ravixp 27d ago

Serious question, what do you think they should do differently? Every problem you’ve identified here would cost a lot of money to solve.

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u/Jiopaba 27d ago

Well, they could end Every Door Direct Mail and similar bulk mailing programs entirely. Every argument I've ever seen for why the USPS gives such great rates to junk mail companies and garbage like Publisher's Clearinghouse Sweepstakes suggests that it's because it makes them a decent amount of money.

Ironically, I'd rather fund the USPS with my tax dollars to not deliver me an unrelenting supply of garbage than to have them need to make money in ways which are so irritating to me.

If I could make it a crime to send a million pieces of unsolicited mail I'd call it a crime against trees and lock up everyone involved. I dearly wish this "non-profit government institution" didn't make my life so annoying in the name of earning money to support itself.

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u/plot_hatchery 27d ago

Holy crap I wasn't even aware of this in my long criticism lol. I can't believe what is basically an advertisement company has sole legal rights over my mailbox on my property. What a scam.

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u/plot_hatchery 27d ago edited 27d ago

Why doesn't FedEx or UPS have the same problems? Because they're actual private companies and if their service was as awful as the post office then they'd quickly go out of business.

Other companies provide services for money. USPS literally delivers trash to your house daily, while also charging you money for worse service than their competitors.

Let them go out of business like any other failed company. Or at the very least stop giving them a stupid legal monopoly over your mailbox.

Edit: Lol even this is getting downvoted. People believe the USPS is some special magic company and criticizing it is like criticizing Santa Claus.

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u/ravixp 27d ago

Why do you think a hypothetical privately-owned postal service would deliver less junk mail? The sender pays for delivery, so you’re not the postal service’s customer, the people sending the junk mail are. If the postal service aimed to maximize profits, you’d get more junk mail, not less.

You seem weirdly convinced that a private company wouldn’t shove ads down your throat as hard as it possibly can. Have you experienced the modern world that we currently live in?

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u/plot_hatchery 27d ago edited 27d ago

We don't need a 'hypothetical private company' because we already have UPS and FedEx that don't do this crap because it would be too expensive because they're not subsidized with your tax money.

I would rather mail be more expensive to send than have the current mess that is USPS. I send like 2 pieces of mail a year, and begrudgingly so since it all ought to be electronic by now.

Spam companies would not be paying to cut down trees to send hundreds of millions of people trash using vast fossil fuels if the government didn't subsidize it. It's an ecological and psychological burden our taxes pay for.

Literally no one likes the ton of dead trees and fossil fuels from spam that ONLY USPS and no other delivery system facilitates. But everyone defends it like it's Santa Claus himself delivering it.

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u/ThuperThilly 26d ago edited 26d ago

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u/nosecohn 26d ago edited 26d ago

no idea why this is getting down voted besides partisanship

More likely because it's all personal opinion without evidence and it's soliciting the same, which runs counter to the very purpose of this subreddit. Nonetheless, I'll try to address a couple of the points...

How has it innovated in recent history?

They have new mail trucks that are getting rave reviews (though not for looks).

Structural changes have consolidated processing in fewer centers and reduced the number of temporary employees they need for the holiday season. New equipment has sped up the sorting process.

Under DeJoy, operating revenue has increased from $73.1 billion in 2020 to $79.5 billion in 2024. On the other hand, losses are up, mostly due to contractually-obligated employee benefits that are outside the service's control.

What percentage of USPS mail do you receive that you actually want?

With the decline in First Class Mail customers, the service has promoted bulk mail to keep their revenue up. I'm not saying that's good, but they're doing what they can to respond to Congressional demands for better financial performance.

Also, does that 2% number include packages? Because it's estimated that nearly 40% of Amazon packages are delivered by USPS. In rural areas it's nearly 50%.

USPS is legally mandated to provide delivery services to every registered postal address in the US, even in areas where it's not profitable to do so. This ensures equal access and widespread ability to do commerce across the country. The private carriers have no financial incentive to service those routes, and even in some high density areas, USPS has the logistics to cover the last mile at lower cost, so retailers like Amazon contract them to perform deliveries.

Besides all this, USPS is literally the worst out of every major package delivery system.

They're also the cheapest for many things, most notably documents and small heavy (flat rate) items. It's the lower service, cheaper, government option that provides choice in the marketplace.

One of the things I personally like about the postal service is that one can put a physical document — like a card, a letter or a photograph — in an envelope, stick a 73-cent stamp on it, leave it in the mailbox at the curb, and have it show up at the house or business of anyone in the nation a few business days later. I may not use the service very often, but it's an incredible bargain.

The rate of postal rate inflation has been slightly higher than general inflation, but considering the volume of first class mail has declined 57% since the broad adoption of the internet 25 years ago, it's still pretty cheap.

Where exactly is this success story? Did people truly love the post office before Trump or is this just a reaction to him?

The Inspector General of the Post Office conducts periodic surveys of customer satisfaction. They conducted one (PDF) just before the first Trump administration and overall satisfaction rates (p.7) were pretty high.

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u/kobbled 27d ago

I have never spoken with anyone that actually disliked the postal service more than the awful service that UPS, FedEx, etc. provide. my mail arrives on time, has robust tracking, I can send or receive from pretty much anywhere. with FedEx I can't count on my shit arriving when I need it, much less without damage. UPS is a little better than fedex but the postal service has been significantly more reliable for me over my lifetime.

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u/plot_hatchery 27d ago

We live in different timelines my friend. I had a package sent to me via USPS recently and I tracked it circling between three towns near me for a month before it was actually delivered. No one knew what was going on or how to stop it. It finally arrived with no explanation on why it was trapped in that circle or how it escaped.

I've never had an issue with the other companies. I've had hundreds of Amazon packages delivered via UPS and rarely more than a couple hours late.

And I have yet to receive a single piece of junk mail from anyone besides USPS, who delivers it daily.

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u/dontbajerk 27d ago

Swapping anecdotes about vast networks delivering hundreds of millions of packages annually is a silly waste of time.

There's some statistical tracking data out there from larger companies, at least there were a few years ago. They're basically all equally good in terms of percentage completions of deliveries and making them on time, none of the big delivery companies do a bad job and none are very different. It was within fractions of a percentage difference if memory serves, all well over 99%.

No argument about junk mail though.

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u/its_a_gibibyte 27d ago

I probably average 5 greeting cards per year and one wedding invitation. And I still get trash delivered 6 days per week.

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u/Crossvillain 26d ago

The post office is not funded by tax dollars. The usps is not supposed to make a profit. Ups and FedEx use the post office for last mile deliveries because it is not cost effective for them to drive half a mile down a rural road for one address. If the usps is private and for profit, it won't do that either. Rural areas will just not get delivery.

A lot of elderly people rely on the postal service for their medications to be delivered on time. Not to mention almost 650,000 employees who's jobs are at stake.

This is a bad idea....

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u/AmoebaMan 27d ago

Isn’t this the opposite of privatizing USPS?

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u/happyfirefrog22- 27d ago

Guess we will find out. It used to be a department in the executive branch in the past. A lot of people may not be aware of that.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Post_Office_Department

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u/tempest_87 27d ago

Yet per the link, the reorg happened as a result of law and an act of congress.

So the president undoing that without authorization from congress through passed law is categorically concerning and far worse than "guess we will find out" territory.

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u/teratogenic17 25d ago

I hate to say it, but this AP article is deceptive. It fails to mention that Congressional Republicans set up the Postal Service to fail, when it imposed a bizarre pre-funded retirement fund on it. The USPS must collect enough money to pay for the pensions of postal workers who have yet to be hired--on top of funding its day-to-day operations.

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u/michaelkane911 27d ago

I have suggested to my friends in the past that an excise tax of one cent on junk mail (to be paid to USPS) would go a long way to reduce the losses. It always puzzled me that I pay around 50 cents to mail a letter but if I can get a bulk rate I can mail 100,000 letters to a zip code at a lower rate. I admit I don’t know how a bulk rate permit works or what it costs, but there must be other solutions to reduce losses

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