General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: A Letter From A Former Letter Carrier [View all]Egalitarian Thug
(12,448 posts)A few examples. Airmail is required by Congress to be shipped through these private carriers at full rate while being secondary to the carriers own freight. That means that when the flight is full of UPS packages, for example, the mail gets left behind. That why postal overnight, while still cheaper than the other carriers, costs as much as it does.
Congress forced the USPS to sell off its own equipment, in the late 70s IIRC (including the fleet of aircraft and all of its trucks) to the private carriers for pennies on the dollar. Have you ever noticed that when you see a USPS trailer on the road, the tractor is always private? USPS pays an exorbitant amount of money to these private enterprises for this service even though they could, if allowed, do it themselves at nearly half the cost while still paying their employees more and providing good benefits to them.
Another form of subsidy comes in the form of a wide variety of Congressional prohibitions from directly competing with private carriers, this is what has led to the blizzard of junk mail, the private carriers don't want that business so it is what's left for the post office to live on. Older people might remember when you could mail things COD and buy money orders from the USPS. Congress killed that, too.
Everything that UPS, FedEx, other carriers, as well as several other businesses can be done cheaper and better by the USPS, but they are prevented from doing it by congress. This is probably the biggest single subsidy, we are all forced to overpay in order for these parasites to exist.