It wasn’t technically a right to you. It was a right given to Congress to create it.
But that’s splitting hairs.
No one has a good solution I’ve seen presented. Not just you guys but anyone.
Eliminate all the data mining and social watching they do, in fact eliminate all facets of technology unless it is used directly to send mail.
Eliminate all custom builds of mail vehicles, outsource using standard vehicles, on lease and or with maintenance included (think Volvo truck type shit)
Eliminate all classes of mail, pay the full price to send a letter, bill or junk. That would likely eliminate most of the junk mail and thus reduce all the operational costs.
Eliminate all their enforcement arms, that’s for law enforcement.
Eliminate all leasing of any postal buildings (yes it happens) either close that mail office, reduce to a postal drop or purchase the land outright.
Eliminate all costs for designs of all packaging, stamps, and bullshittery. If you need a stamp designed, do a public call for designs, winner gets 1 year free unlimited postal mail. Encourage kids to do it.
Renegotiate the Amazon contract. Tell Amazon to fuck off or pay up. If they weren’t takin advantage of the USPS, and thus the taxpayer, they wouldn’t have them do it. Make it so costly for Amazon that they roll their own trucks. Why? If Amazon kicks them now, likely the USPS would be bankrupt tomorrow since that contract has to be gigantic (and full of grifts)
Then let the privates do their thing. And the USPS Goes back to carrying letters and not trash, or filling corporate holes for cheap.
It's not even a right issued to congress - it's a power granted to them. They're under no obligation to use it.
There's no easy solution to the postal boondoggle, but the easiest way to force a fix would probably be to cut it loose from congressional control. Congress issues them a charter that lays out obligations, but the entity can run their business however they want and charge whatever they want as long as those obligations are met. If there's demand, eventually someone would come along and deliver letters cheaper. There probably isn't, however.
Yeah, you're going to be paying the actual cartage costs for that first class letter. It's going to hurt. But then again, how many letters do you send? Personally, I send two a year because a local authority doesn't have an online portal worth a damn, and the fucking IRS is going to process my 50 page return on fucking paper because fuck them.
But that's not going to happen because the federal postal service is considered the "official" way to deliver legal documents to you, and it's a great way to make sure you're not doing wrongthink.
You said it correctly. Words matter, I say that lots, and I fucked up, but yes, power granted. And they don't have to do it. Not sure if they could resend it, they have to power to create, but maybe not the power to destroy?
Would cutting it loose from congressional control help? Who knows.
I do remember, the USPS wanted to do something like Paypal and MoneyGram, Etc back in the late 80's. They already moved money around by issuing stamps, they wanted to be a place you could go to send money and receive it. That made sense since stamps are actualy money base don the face value, and likely worth more than the fucking dollar. Congress told them to get fucked, they arent a bank. If Congress let them do that, well two things would have happened. 1) they would likely be profitable (what if they could keep 3% of all stamps used?) 2) the bad, they could track all kinds of money movement.
And yeah, its written in so many Corp or LLC docs that notifications must use USPS registered mail and shit....hard to unwind that, but if it went away, likely all that shit would just be ammended to USE FEDEX with Signature Receipt.
No matter, this is a good conversation on the USPS. Wonder what Theo's thoughts are.
There's no easy solution. Anything that's done is going to hurt someone's feefees. But they're not willing to try anything at all, so...the point is moot.
c'est la vie.