this post was submitted on 19 Jul 2025

277 points (100.0% liked)

politics

24973 readers

2655 users here now

Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!

Rules:

Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.

Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.

Example:

Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.

That's all the rules!

Civic Links

• Register To Vote

• Citizenship Resource Center

• Congressional Awards Program

• Federal Government Agencies

• Library of Congress Legislative Resources

• The White House

• U.S. House of Representatives

• U.S. Senate

Partnered Communities:

• News

• World News

• Business News

• Political Discussion

• Ask Politics

• Military News

• Global Politics

• Moderate Politics

• Progressive Politics

• UK Politics

• Canadian Politics

• Australian Politics

• New Zealand Politics

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

outrageousmatter@lemmy.world

aidan@lemmy.world

jordanlund@lemmy.world

little_cow@lemmy.world

Theonetheycall1845@lemmy.world

JuBe@lemmy.world

Lasherz12@lemmy.world

277

New U.S. Postal Service head says he doesn't believe in privatizing the mail agency (www.npr.org)

submitted 1 week ago by babysandpiper@sopuli.xyz to c/politics@lemmy.world

38 comments fedilink hide all child comments

top 38 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[–] Drusas@fedia.io 111 points 1 week ago

I don't believe a thing these people have to say at this point.

[–] Booboofinget@lemmy.world 87 points 1 week ago (3 children)

I'm hoping he's being truthful. I not only believe the post office should not be privatized but should be subsidized. It's a vital government service.

[–] mkwt@lemmy.world 16 points 1 week ago (1 children)

He probably wants to read your mail.

[–] ToastedRavioli@midwest.social 7 points 1 week ago

If he is so willing, Id be more than happy to direct the 8 credit card offers capital one sends me every week to his mailbox and away from mine. They must have killed at least two full trees by now sending me the same bullshit shit every week for years

[–] mic_check_one_two@lemmy.dbzer0.com 15 points 1 week ago

Yeah, the fact that the USPS has been able to fully financially support itself (in spite of congress continuously trying to kill it) is a testament to the fact that it’s a vital service.

[+] Rivalarrival@lemmy.today -56 points 1 week ago (3 children)

They transport trash. Literally.

Their business model is collecting literal trash, in bulk, from various businesses, and evenly distributing it to every residence in the nation. From there, that trash is deposited directly into solid waste streams, recollected by sanitation engineers, and transported to landfills.

The only value the postal service brings is establishing a baseline price for low-speed package delivery that keeps UPS and FedEx from jacking their prices to the moon.

[–] benignintervention@lemmy.world 26 points 1 week ago (1 children)

It's not a business. It's a service.

[+] Rivalarrival@lemmy.today -25 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Yes, of course.

The service they provide is, primarily, the conveyance of trash to every residence in the US.

Sure, they also transport various papers and small packages, including (once upon a time) children.

But their core service is trash distribution. They transport hundreds of pieces of trash for every letter and package they also deliver.

I don't know what the solution to all that trash is. I don't think the postal service should be privatized or disbanded. But, it is a trash-supported platform.

I think they should become a basic, cashless banking service. Direct deposit, debit card, nothing fancy. No commercial loans; only treasury securities, with interest paid through to depositors.

Universal access banking. Force commercial banks and payment processors to unfuck themselves if they want to keep customers.

Let banking become their core service, and they can reduce/eliminate their trash distribution service.

[–] benignintervention@lemmy.world 21 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

You're fixating on a symptom, not a cause. What you're really concerned about is the parasitic nature of predatory marketing. That's where all the garbage comes from. If you changed the USPS the way you say, all that trash would migrate to other delivery services. Attack the root cause: predatory marketing.

Edit: typos

[+] Rivalarrival@lemmy.today -18 points 1 week ago (1 children)

It costs about $4.50/pc to send local junkmail via UPS or FedEx, vs $0.24 via USPS.

Junk mail exists only because the USPS exists to deliver it. USPS exists (in its current form) only because of junk mail. There is no "root cause". It's a synergistic relationship between the two.

Transition the focus of the USPS to other essential services, like cashless banking. Abandon the trash delivery service.

[–] benignintervention@lemmy.world 13 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I see this is going nowhere. Good luck out there

[–] Booboofinget@lemmy.world 21 points 1 week ago (1 children)

You probably are unaware that both UPS and FedEx both contract USPS to deliver their parcels. Both last mile and long distance as well. A lot of packages are picked up by USPS their UPS store, and delivered to another UPS store, after a nice markup.

Also neither UPS or FedEx deliver or have any interest in delivering to every address I the US and its territories.

[+] Rivalarrival@lemmy.today -10 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Very well aware of both SurePost and SmartPost. You're not telling me anything new. Both of those services rely on the fact that the USPS subsidizes their delivery services through trash distribution. They charge businesses to transport trash to mailboxes, where it ends up in a wheely bin > trash truck > landfill.

As I've mentioned in other comments, I don't want USPS privatized. I am only pointing out that their core competency is not delivery. They are trash distributors. Garbage providers.

The old "every door, every day" model is propped up by hundreds of pieces of trash for every actual delivery. It is not sustainable.

USPS needs a presence throughout the country. Every residence should, indeed, be served by the postal service. But, that doesn't mean they need to go everywhere, every day. They should retire the trash delivery model that props up their package delivery service, and switch to universal access banking services as their core competency.

[–] skulblaka@sh.itjust.works 5 points 1 week ago (1 children)

They should retire the trash delivery model that props up their package delivery service, and switch to universal access banking services as their core competency.

They don't need to switch to anything so long as they're properly tax funded like they're supposed to be (they aren't, Republicans have been bleeding their finances for decades). For instance, the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act (PAEA) required the USPS to create a $72 billion fund to pay for the cost of its post-retirement health care costs, 75 years into the future. This burden applies to no other federal agency or private corporation.

Remove R oversight of the post office and roll back their ridiculous demands and your problem is already solved. Postal struggles are a problem manufactured by conservatives in an effort to sell you a solution to the problem they caused.

Not having to finance that overmassive backlog of cash, combined with a little bit of updating advertising law to the modern age, solves your problem three ways over.

But naturally this will never happen because that $72B is specifically earmarked to be looted by the government once they finally manage to kill and privatize the USPS. That's the real reason that pension fund exists.

[–] Rivalarrival@lemmy.today -1 points 1 week ago (2 children)

The problem I am talking about is with their basic business model, and has nothing to do with how badly the Republicans are managing (bungling) their operation. The problem I am talking about is not at all related to their pension fund.

If the USPS operated on the internet the way it operates in the physical world, they would be immediately added to the blacklists on uBlock Origin and PiHole. That is the problem. They exist primarily to serve the needs of marketers rather than the general public.

The real problem with the postal system is that the telegraph and phone systems were not placed in their purview 100+ years ago. The FCC is now performing the role that the postal service fulfilled at the nation's inception, and the postal service is being squeezed out of relevance. They are no longer the primary route of public communication that they were 250 years ago.

To re-attain the original role for which they were created, the postal service should also be a universal access internet and phone service provider. Which, like universal banking access, is desperately needed in the public space.

The postal service is being forced to use same business model today as at the time of the nation's inception. The only thing it is being allowed to do is convey physical media to the public's door. It has not been allowed to explore natural extensions of that, such as banking and telecoms.

[–] skulblaka@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Ehh, personally I don't really see banking as being a natural extension of the post, but I can kind of see where you're coming from with that in context of the rest of the argument.

However, USPS is not a business. It is a tax funded service. It was never intended to be profitable, it was intended to perform a necessary service for citizens. You cannot have a functional society without a way to transfer mail. Therefore, it is a responsibility of every government to provide a postal service.

The fact that USPS has been forced to become profitable in order to survive, largely because of their federally mandated $72 billion money pit, is exactly why they have to accept a bunch of money to deliver you a bunch of garbage. If they weren't beholden to draconian financing rules that literally no one else is subject to, the cost of stamps alone could power the entire USPS (and did, for over a hundred years).

However I'm not sure that's the entire problem though. I don't believe that USPS has the legal right to just decide not to deliver mail to you that they don't like. If Capital One wants to mail you a credit offer and they spend the money to send it, I'm pretty certain that the post office is legally obligated to deliver it. So even if they came out and said officially "we will no longer deliver spam" I don't think that's a thing they'd be allowed to do. And that's a good thing! Just, as usual with most things now, corporations are abusing it to death. Effectively outlawing paper spam would reduce a lot of the USPS's active income, but it would also massively reduce their workload. No longer requiring USPS to be profitable enough to build a nest egg should go the rest of the way to pretty much even that all out in the wash, I think. But this is legislation that would need to take place on the corporations' side, not the post's side. The post is legally required to deliver all mail that is legal and deliverable, and this is good and right. Making spam undeliverable is a better solution than making the post office decide what they want to deliver or not.

The real problem with the postal system is that the telegraph and phone systems were not placed in their purview 100+ years ago. The FCC is now performing the role that the postal service fulfilled at the nation's inception, and the postal service is being squeezed out of relevance. They are no longer the primary route of public communication that they were 250 years ago [...] To re-attain the original role for which they were created, the postal service should also be a universal access internet and phone service provider. Which, like universal banking access, is desperately needed in the public space.

Absolutely agreed here, 10/10 no notes. The fact that much of our important communication has now moved to the internet is a brilliant argument for expanding the USPS to also become a federal universal internet provider. I think that's an excellent idea. 99% of phones are VOIP now anyway so they barely, if at all, even have to worry about a telecoms department specifically.

I think we're both mostly on the same side here, I'm just under no impression that the post office needs to be profitable. It is a public service, it's by definition an expense that taxes are intended to cover - and one that I'm happy to put my tax money into, even now. I'm also upset at the sheer volume of waste of postal garbage that is going around, but I'd rather have a post office with some trash in it than some trash with no post office in it.

[–] Rivalarrival@lemmy.today 0 points 1 week ago (1 children)

It is a tax funded service.

It is not. Nor should it be. I'll get back to this is a second.

Capital One wants to mail you a credit offer and they spend the money to send it, I'm pretty certain that the post office is legally obligated to deliver it.

They are, indeed. The problem is not that Capital One wants to spend money mailing that offer. The problem is that Capital One is getting a deep discount on postage, to encourage them to send that offer physically, by mail, instead of through a more appropriate channel. The postal service needs Capital One to do that, because they need the postage revenue to justify the cost of sending someone to every door, every day.

Going back to your last point about taxpayer funding: should Capital One's choice to send you an offer be subsidized by the taxpayer? Should they pay less for a stamp because the federal government will be picking up the tab?

The postal service either needs to be entirely self funded, or access to that service needs to be restricted to "acceptable" senders, which opens an entirely new can of worms.

As you pointed out, the USPS can't simply reject Capital One's mail; they are legally required to deliver it. Any operational subsidies to the USPS are funding Capital One's marketing budget. With the tax-funded model you are talking about, we are paying for Capital One to send that junk mail. That's simply not feasible.

Effectively outlawing paper spam would reduce a lot of the USPS's active income, but it would also massively reduce their workload.

Not really, no. Yes, they are handling fewer pieces of mail, but their workload isn't really based on that. The principal factor affecting their workload is the number of doors they have to visit. (Even if they dont have a delivery, they might have a pickup, so they still have to visit the door and look for the outgoing mail flag.)

Eliminate all the junk mail, and your mail carrier's bag is a little lighter, but she is still taking the same number of steps on her route; he is still racking up the same number of route-miles on his truck's odometer.

[–] skulblaka@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 week ago

Good points to think about. Thank you.

I did in fact think that USPS was at least partially tax funded, and despite your (rather good, actually) arguments I do still think it is a good idea to help subsidize them with taxes. They are still a necessary office after all, and as you've said, even if people aren't receiving mail they might still be sending it, so the post office has to check. But if most people haven't sent any mail that day that's a huge operating cost that isn't being returned on stamps.

Going back to your last point about taxpayer funding: should Capital One's choice to send you an offer be subsidized by the taxpayer? Should they pay less for a stamp because the federal government will be picking up the tab?

If anything I think I lean toward the idea that civilian mail should be free and business mail should require stamp fees. I admit I'm unsure how to balance the cost of a stamp with tax income to the post office, however. But if businesses want to spam you they damn well better pay for it, and high stamp fees on nonessential commercial mail could be an effective stopper for it. But then we run into problems of how to identify essential vs nonessential commercial mail, or solicited vs nonsolicited if you prefer, and ways to prevent abuse of that system... Companies already write "URGENT!!" all over the outside of their spam envelopes so it's not like that's going to be a useful identifier. I'm unsure how to solve this problem.

There are multiple ways to solve the "USPS has to visit every house every day" problem though, but unfortunately none that I see being realistically implemented. Just off the top of my head here I'm thinking:

A) Mail pickups only happen on one, or several specific, days of the week, thereby allowing them to shave off a lot of route for deliveries on non-pickup days. We could even alternate mail pickup and mail drop off days, 3 of each in a week with no post on Sundays. This is completely viable but everyone will bitch and complain loudly about this and blame me when they're late on payments or the like.

B) Mail pickups only happen at specific drop off locations. Every neighborhood would essentially need a mail drop off box like an apartment complex has. I'm less thrilled about this idea because it might make it easier for people to steal your outgoing mail - though it's not like this is difficult as it is. This combined with option A could lead to massive efficiency gains. Everyone will also bitch and complain loudly about this because they have to walk a block or two to drop off a letter.

C) Start putting solar powered signalers in the mailboxes that tell when they have the flag up. You could piggyback this off of cell phone towers or build your own separate infrastructure to prevent bandwidth issues. That way the post office knows remotely who has a flag up or not and adjust the routes accordingly, even adjusting with live data if you want, we definitely have all the technology to do this. This is by far the most expensive of my half baked options, but it isn't like we couldn't do it if we wanted to, we've had all the tech required to do this for 20 years. Once again, everyone would bitch and complain about this for various reasons, but they'd get over it pretty quick. I view this in the same light as when we cut over from analog TV to digital back in 2009. Everyone gets upset that A Change Is Happening and talks about it for 6 months and then it's just life as normal.

Unfortunately all these things cost some amount of money and are likely to be initially unpopular with voters so I don't really see any of it actually happening. Most people would rather limp along with a half-broken system than replace it with something new. I'm also quite confident that anything I could invent to address these problems will be soundly abused by corps with little trouble.

Seriously though, great points, good discussion, thank you. You've given me a lot to think about.

[–] brygphilomena@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 week ago

We should just have them take on the additional role of rolling out a nationwide, subsidized, high speed fiber network.

[–] enthusiasm_headquarters@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

This is what they do now. Some counties and cities tax junk mail, this is very effective. When my city did this, it so affected the amount of paper being recycled that the city worried that people were no longer interested in the recycling program (they figured it out). You can't blame the USPS for junk mail. They deliver, as fast as they can, and that's it.

One thing that should be brought back to the post, and my president, Elizabeth Warren, agrees, is payday check loans. That used to be a USPS service, and it was very popular. The payday loans were always locked with interest no higher than inflation, so it wasn't a disaster if you got one. In the 1940s. the USP Savings System held billions in receipts, and was so trusted that even the rich invested in it.

When banks returned to full health, the "government monopoly" was taken from the USPS and ended up in the hands of a bunch of predatory check cashing companies that you now see littering every struggling neighborhood in the USA, except in the few places they're banned. Ironically, the 1980s destroyed the small town community bank (part of Reagan's legacy was the S&L scandal), which were supposed to be replacing the USPS, and the extortionists proliferated. Major banks are now in the game, offering payday/salary loans with 200-300% introductory rates.

Blame this guy.

It goes without saying, the business of payday loans hits the poor hard. Interest can reach 1000% if payments are missed, it's hell. In contrast, the USPSS helped establish credit for millions of working poor people in America. Even when it was judged "redundant" in the late 60s, over a million people still had an account with USPS. And nobody ever talks about it.

[–] Rivalarrival@lemmy.today 1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

You can't blame the USPS for junk mail. They deliver, as fast as they can, and that's it.

They also establish postage rates. Those rates are specifically designed to maximize revenue from junk mail. So, yes, I can actually place a large part of the blame for junk mail directly on the postal service. They need the revenue from that junk mail to stay solvent. Without that junkmail, they would bankrupt themselves.

Which means their primary business is trash distribution. If uBlock functioned in the real world, the first thing it would block would be highway billboards, followed immediately by the USPS in its entirety.

One thing that should be brought back to the post, and my president, Elizabeth Warren, agrees, is payday check loans.

I fully agree with that. Basic banking services should be a core function of the post office.

[–] enthusiasm_headquarters@lemmy.world 1 points 6 days ago

Yes, I know, I meant that you can't blame the USPS for being required to function as a corporation.They are constantly targeted. If they were to not generate a profit, this would surely give more ammunition to the morons that think privatizing (more to the point, destroying their union) the USPS will make things better or more efficient. By necessity they have to make money where they can.

I brought up the old credit and savings service because it provided genuinely useful and helpful options for people, and it generated enough money for the post that they didn't have to lean on such cheap tactics as soliciting junk mail. I don't think the thousands of mail sorters are happy about it either; it's demoralizing to sift through and dump garbage onto people for a living.

[–] SoftestSapphic@lemmy.world 35 points 1 week ago

Weird Trump replaced Dejoy

Even weirder Biden didn't

[–] reddig33@lemmy.world 29 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Hard to believe DeJoy stepped down. Guess he got an offer from a right wing think tank or something.

[–] gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works 17 points 1 week ago

No, he had literally done everything he set out to, and packed it in. He accomplished his mission.

[–] enthusiasm_headquarters@lemmy.world 18 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Because maintaining the USPS is a federal obligation as stated in the fucking Constitution. Anyone that doesn't understand this hates America and has AIDS.

[–] OutlierBlue@lemmy.ca 7 points 1 week ago

Why would they start listening to the Constitution now?

[–] SirEDCaLot@lemmy.today 4 points 1 week ago

Come on now let's be civil, even AIDS patients understand the Constitution 😝

[–] Itdidnttrickledown@lemmy.world 15 points 1 week ago

So he is there to kill it.

[–] Hux@lemmy.ml 10 points 1 week ago

So, he is actively in the process of privatizing the Postal Service.

[–] TheReturnOfPEB@reddthat.com 10 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

and senators and congresspersons keep voting for bills that they oppose

reality is topsy-turvy and i honestly don't have a handle on wtf

[–] KingPorkChop@lemmy.ca 9 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Well, he's fired in 3..2..

[–] DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social 7 points 1 week ago

Dems: but but but you need a quorum and the procedures say that

[–] SeeMarkFly@lemmy.ml 8 points 1 week ago

What they say and what they do is two different things.

[–] CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world 5 points 1 week ago

Why the fuck this is even something that is in question is just crazy, but that's the insidiousness of a right wing cult that keeps shifting everything to the extremist right wing.

[–] Theprogressivist@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago

Yeah, ok.

[–] bathing_in_bismuth@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 week ago

I think all the mentions of post and letters (in terms of what is allowed and regulations) in the us constitution only apply to USPS and not private companies like UPS.

I wonder if that's positive or negative in terms of ie. privacy