First, the government does force you to use USPS for some things. The USPS has a monopoly on the delivery of certain types of mail.
Second, we all pay for USPS as taxpayers regardless of whether we use its ancillary services. Well, we won't pay if check cashing is a profitable program, but we will if it's not -- and I'm skeptical that it will be profitable given you have fraud costs, training costs, etc.
> Walmart may subsidize the service assuming you’ll spend money in store and they’ll get several more dollars out of the transaction. Even less expensive, grocery stores have long done cash checking for free when you check out at the store.
To me these are both reasons for the government not to get into this business. If Walmart offers a lower price, whether that's a loss leader or not, it's great for consumers.
IMHO govt services make sense when private industry can't provide them effectively. That doesn't seem like the case here.
> It is hard for me to be upset about a new service that is less expensive than the set of companies gouging people, but has some competitors that are cheaper.
Zero qualms about other companies offering new services. If they work well, those companies will succeed, and if not, they will fail. And success is based on making customers happier than competitors do. That's not the case with government services. If they work well, great, and if not, everyone subsidizes them. For example if a startup launches check cashing and loses $10m because of fraud, they go under. If the USPS ends up losing $1b due to check fraud next year, I'm guessing they'll just ask for $1b more in funding the following year.
And if check cashing seems like a good direction, should the government develop its own reward credit cards? Buy now, pay later? Crypto exchanges? Etc.