> the P.O. could use the income
The P.O. is a service, it doesn't have need of income.
Does the Department of Defence need income? Does Social Security need income? Does the EPA need income?
No, because they're services, not for-profit businesses.
The P.O. is a service, it doesn't have need of income.
Does the Department of Defence need income? Does Social Security need income? Does the EPA need income?
No, because they're services, not for-profit businesses.
Both of these could be eliminated by congress, but there doesn't seem to be the will (and in fact, there is an ideological faction in congress that would eliminate the postal service or privatize it for their donors' benefit if they could).
USPS pensions etc. were extremely underfunded for a long time. The size, scope, and quasi-governmental nature of USPS meant that ignoring the problem was more likely to involve a bailout than responsible operations.
IMO, the only unreasonable pension expectation levied on USPS is that for veterans: They’re required to pay some amount of veteran retirement benefits for some reason that I haven’t been able to make sense of.
I haven't seen any mention of setting aside money for people who don't work there yet, including in your link.
Asking to be treated like the government so that you can hire someone now, with promises of future payments, then pull in those payments based upon the revenue produced by future employees is analogous to a ponzi scheme. The federal government gets away with pay-as-you-go because they can set taxes, devalue money, change payment plans, etc...
How much the government should be investing in providing a quality mail system is a different discussion entirely. But this discussion is basically "should pensions be funded or not". Calling it prefunding is a rhetorical device only, and doesn't stand up to actuarial scrutiny.
If public Company A has costs greater than revenue and is therefore losing money, private Company B will therefore (?) be able to provide a better service at lower cost? On what basis?
There is no private company today that does what the USPS does. It's easy to forget while living in the metro areas most of us live in, but Fedex, UPS, and DHL often contract out to deliver to rural addresses, because they don't offer universal delivery. The contract out to the USPS, which does because it's required to.
So no, I absolutely dispute that a private company would or could provide a better service than the USPS at lower cost. The USPS would be fine if not repeatedly and continually hamstrung by Congress, and no competitor comes close even so.
I mean, have you compared prices recently? Today, right now, private companies are providing arguably worse services (again, more limited delivery area) at higher cost[0].
0. https://goshippo.com/blog/which-is-cheaper-usps-vs-ups-vs-fe...
no but it needs funding, has the funding been good over the last few decades?
Ratios are great except when they obscure what problem they're supposed to address.
They have the wrong set of policies and practices in many cases, but “more money” is a simpler thing to ask for that specific improvements to educational practices.