USPS is hanging on by a thread
Amidst the coronavirus storm, it can be hard to identify which aspects of American life should be tossed into the lifeboat of priorities. The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) is one of them. It is the largest postal service in the world. Yet like thousands of individual Americans battling COVID-19, its health is in danger. It may not survive through the end of the year.
The U.S. mail service predates the U.S. Constitution itself, which expressly empowers Congress “[t]o establish Post Offices and Post Roads.” The first post office sprung up in the colonies in 1639, when Massachusetts enacted legislation ordering that overseas letters pass through Fairbanks Tavern in Boston. Decades later, the King of England approved the office of postmaster general for America, a position held by Benjamin Franklin, who in 1753 initiated efforts to establish an intra-colony postal system. In 1775, the first Continental Congress appointed a committee to establish a postal system, resolving that “the present critical situation of the colonies renders it highly desirable that ways and means should be devised for the speedy and secure conveyance of Intelligence from one end of the Continent to the other.”
In 1792, President George Washington signed into law the first Postal Service Act, which established the first postage rates and post roads and created the United States Post Office Department as part of the federal government. In 1829, the postmaster general was made a member of the president’s Cabinet. Free delivery began in 1863.
Zip codes were added in 1963 to make sorting and delivery easier. In 1970, Congress passed the Postal Reorganization Act, which transformed the Post Office Department into a government-owned corporation called the U.S. Postal Service. It is directed by a board of nine governors, including the postmaster general, each of whom is appointed by the president with the advice and consent of the Senate. As private competitors entered the mail delivery market, Express Mail was introduced in 1977. In 1982, Congress halted direct subsidies to the USPS, although rate funding remains for nonprofit organizations and small publishers.
Read more: https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/493920-usps-is-hanging-on-by-a-thread
= new reply since forum marked as read
Last edited Wed Apr 22, 2020, 08:13 AM - Edit history (1)
This excerpt omits that crucial the fact. The government CAN NOT allow the USPS to fail without violating the mandate of the Constitution.
The USPS and the U.S. Army are both constitutionally mandated. Nobody expects the Army to generate revenue or operate on a balanced budget. Nobody should expect the USPS to generate revenue or operate on a balanced budget either.
-Laelth
Edited to add: The post above is factually and legally incorrect because the Article I language in the Constitution regarding Post Offices is decidedly optional, not mandatory.
Mea culpa.
It's the billionaire mega mansion country club conservative pricks that want it to fail.
