Here’s a great idea sure to be endorsed by everyone who doesn’t think they get enough junk in their mailbox every day: tax email to subsidize the Postal Service.
I can see it now: A multi-billion-dollar annual slush fund that the president can use to reward his supporters in Congress. Labor agreements that allow mail carriers to retire on full pensions at age 55 after just ten years of work. Whole new lobby groups looking enviously at European postal subsidies and talking about how we need postal subsidies to “reconnect America.”
Whole engineering firms will devote themselves to doing studies of whether cities should accept federal funds to build new post offices. Soon people will point out how new post offices stimulate economic development. “We built one post office in a blighted area,” someone will no doubt say, “and got a billion dollars of new projects.” Others will complain about how unsustainable airmail is and demand a return to railway post offices.
Of course, this is only the beginning. We need to tax word processing software to subsidize typewriters; tax spreadsheets to subsidize slide rules; tax digital cameras to subsidize film manufacturers. Whole industries are disappearing before our eyes. Think of the lost jobs!
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Seriously, would it be so terrible if mail delivery was reduced to just five times a week? Does the Postal Service really need to have a legal monopoly on first-class mail? If we’re going to tax carbon, sugar, and trans-fats, maybe we should raise postal rates on junk mail to be double those of first-class mail.
Ronald Reagan said, “Government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.” With this proposal, someone managed to combine the first and third of these at the same time. The next obvious step will be to artificially narrow Internet bandwidth in order to force people off of their computers and get them back to using fountain pens and typewriters.
I don’t see a problem with the post office going down to Monday, Wednesday, Friday delivery. Some anti-frouad laws might have to be updated to include private overnight carriers.
The problem with selling off post offices is that the US postal service might end up in long term rents that cost more in the long run. Also conflict of interest in that one of Blum’s (husband to senator Feinstein) firms has the contract to sell the post offices, see:
http://www.sfgate.com/business/bottomline/article/Grim-outlook-for-post-office-buildings-4264630.php (Google search terms “blum contract sale post offices”).
Already happening. The Post Office covers deficits by borrowing from the US Treasury. Sooner or later, the Feds are going to have to forgive the debt.
The claim that the Post Office is an independent thing is pure bleep. Congress won’t let them do much to reduce costs. The PO was going to close a distribution center in Delaware and do the service from Maryland and the Delaware Congress Critters went ballistic.
Well the thing about typewriters is……….they’re making a comeback. Niche markets are involving would be writers are resurrecting the ribbons and bringing their granddads typewriter out of the attic so they can produce the next great American novel………..or Twilight fanfictions, I dont care. Vinyl records, bell bottom pants, film cameras by dedicated purists.
At least for now, we still need a Postal Service.
There may come a time when we don’t, but Congress would need to rework how First Class Mail is delivered, along with certified and registered items.
What we don’t need are the militant postal unions, though I am not sure how we get rid of those.
Funny how declining government-subsidized industries like the Postal Service and various mass transit agencies seem to have some of the most-militant unions in the United States. Why is that?
And if you live in the District of Columbia, or have an interest in a zoning matter within the city, you need the Postal Service, since the D.C. Office of Zoning does not accept e-mail, as described by the GreaterGreater Washington blog here.
The USPS is forced to put away 75 years worth of health costs (or something close to that). That rule was put in place by city slicker Republicans. Gosh, Apple wouldn’t be profitable if it had to put away money to fund the health care of future employees still in cribs.
Rural America needs the USPS.
Actually, the competition between FedEx, UPS and the Post Office seems to have produced a system that is efficient and not too expensive. Let’s not break it.
Tax e-mail? No, let’s sell tiny little stamps …..
English Major said:
The USPS is forced to put away 75 years worth of health costs (or something close to that). That rule was put in place by city slicker Republicans. Gosh, Apple wouldn’t be profitable if it had to put away money to fund the health care of future employees still in cribs.
Except the “city slicker” Republicans are actually “suburban” and “country slickers” from a mid 2000s Repug Congress who never met a privatization scheme they didn’t like, e.g., their plan to deliberately bankrupt the USPS so we can have all the so-prized (sic) benefits of “privatization.” You know, like the “privatization” of British Rail that has cost British taxpayers a lot more annually than the nationalized British Rail operation ever did.
msetty wrote:
Except the “city slicker” Republicans are actually “suburban” and “country slickers” from a mid 2000s Repug Congress who never met a privatization scheme they didn’t like, e.g., their plan to deliberately bankrupt the USPS so we can have all the so-prized (sic) benefits of “privatization.” You know, like the “privatization” of British Rail that has cost British taxpayers a lot more annually than the nationalized British Rail operation ever did.
Mr. Setty, there is at least some nuggets of truth in the above. Moving the mail is something the Founding Fathers felt should be a responsibility of the new federal government, as it was written into the Constitution.
As regards privatization, a lot (most, I think) of the Postal Service’s intercity transport of mail is provided by the private sector, though post office employees and carriers are (apparently) always federal employees. Given the legally-protected nature of the mail, things probably will stay that way, no matter what the Republic Party apparat in Washington wants.
However, there may come a time when we no longer need a Postal Service. What then?
Could we privatize significant parts of the Postal Service and have local retail outlets function as post offices? That’s what Sweden did.
CPZ, I don’t object to contracting out like the USPS apparently does for a lot of trucking. It’s the religious aspects of “privatization for the sake of privatization” that I object to.
I think there will always be some need for something that resembles the USPS today, if only for the cheap if slow movement of things like “Media Mail.” If some really small rural areas aren’t to shrivel up completely, there is also a need for affordable mail and package delivery even if subsidized by the government, even if such “mail” hitches rides in UPS and FedEx trucks. Not everything can be converted to electronic transmission, and not everyone can afford high FedEx rates–for example, I’m planning to ship a bunch of books to a friend in Washington State, which would cost me close to $200 via Brown or FedEx vs. $40-$50 via Media Mail–doesn’t matter if it even took two weeks to get there…
Michael Setty: YOU should pay to ship MY books!
The “unfair” bill requiring the Post Office to pre-fund its pension obligations to the tune of $75 billion was passed in 2006. At that time, the National Association of Letter Carriers announced that they had beaten back all the bad recommendations of Bush’s 2003 blue-ribbon commission and won pretty much every important battle in negotiations with Congress. They also trumpeted the fact that they had “protected the interests of our current and future retirees, whose health benefits will be fully funded.” Only seven years later, they claim they’ve overfunded their pension plan and have been subjected to unfair requirements to fund their retirees’ future health benefits.
http://www.nalc.org/postal/reform/paea_2006.html
We also need a gas tax to subsidize the buggy whip industry. And a cell phone tax to subsidize the land line industry. And a digital TV tax to subsidize the analog TV industry. And a color TV tax to subsidize the B&W TV industry. And DVR tax to subsidize VHS tapes.
Frank speweth forth:
Michael Setty: YOU should pay to ship MY books!
Sandy Teal brain-farted:
We also need a gas tax to subsidize the buggy whip industry. And a cell phone tax to subsidize the land line industry. And a digital TV tax to subsidize the analog TV industry. And a color TV tax to subsidize the B&W TV industry. And DVR tax to subsidize VHS tapes.
Frank and Sandy Teal, stop being the knee-jerk ideologues you too often come across as here (it is increasing difficult to stay “civil” (sic) with right wingers and other self-styled “conservatives” or “libertarians” since they generate most of the political vitriol in this country, but I digress).
Until the Repug Congress started to demand that the USPS pay for 75 years of pensions–something demanded of no other quasi-governmental agency or private company, for that matter–the USPS has managed to cope (as well as a government entity “copes” anyway) with steadily reduced mail volumes, and has not been subsidized by taxes since the early 1980’s years of Ronnie Reagan.
Also try to find a shipping service as cheap as media mail. Unless you’re shipping a pallet or larger, I’m not aware of any. Brown and FedEx don’t offer any such thing nearly as cheap as the USPS.
msetty –
On most blog postings I would take your comment to heart. I would usually agree with you about wanting more civility and not political posturing.
However, this posting about taxing e-mails to subsidize the Post Office deserves all the ridicule that anybody can throw at it. And more. That proposal was has been an e-mail hoax for at least twenty years. And the logical rationale is truly the worst possible economics.
So call me out on a serious proposal if I get too partisan. But on Looney Tunes posts, let’s have fun with it.
“there is also a need for affordable mail and package delivery even if subsidized by the government”
Michael Setty restated: “YOU pay to ship MY books!”
Even Yglesias knows a large area of USPS delivery is subsidized: “As a country, we need to ask ourselves whether providing subsidized mail delivery to low-density areas is really a key national priority. Without the monopoly/universal service obligation, it’s not as if rural dwellers wouldn’t be able to get mail, [sic] it’s just that they might need to pay more in recognition of the fact that it’s inconvenient to provide delivery services to low-density areas. … it’s not the case that rural Americans are unusually hard-pressed economically or are disproportionate contributors to the economy. They are, rather, the beneficiaries of numerous explicit and implicit subsidies, of which the Postal Service’s universal service obligation is one.”
Frank, how about we get rid of the (frequently excessive and frequently as wasteful as FTA and Amtrak passenger rail subventions) USDA farm subsidies, and keep universal (even sometimes subsidized) First Class Mail service?
CPZ, if we’re going to argue subsidies to rural areas, let’s not forget the inordinate subsidies to rural Interstates, state highways and local rural roads. Take Montana, for example. I strongly suspect when all costs are accounted for including the original construction costs, ongoing maintenance and periodic reconstruction are accounted for, Interstate 90 through Montana probably recovers a lower percentage of its costs than the parallel Amtrak Empire Builder along the US 2 corridor. Heck, US 2 is probably a huge loser by any accounting standard, probably losing even more per trip and per passenger/vehicle mile than I-90 mainly because its ADT is an order of magnitude smaller.
Similarly, when all auto- and highway-related costs to society and the economy into account that the auto/highway apologist shills refuse to acknowledge are, and have been driven for 90+ years, by the government-operated “highway tail” that wags the “auto/highway dog,” the results are similar. Such costs that are NEVER admitted to by the auto/highway apologist shills refuse to acknowledge who comment here and elsewhere include the hundreds of billions annually that subsidize parking public and private, the $200 billion+ cost to the health system of auto-related injuries NOT paid by auto insurance, as well as the usual costs cited by enviros such as air pollution, oil pollution, the cost of Middle Eastern wars to keep the oil flowing, and so forth. All told the direct, indirect and hidden subsidies to driving probably exceeds $1 trillion annually, the lion’s share within our cities and roughly the same quantity that people spend on the act of driving.
So when people complain about the relatively microscopic total subsidies that go to Amtrak and transit (<$40 billion/yr including capital), I just go HA! HA! HA!
And I'm less concerned about rural road subsidies, too, mainly because most of the problems caused by driving are in our cities, not the country (with the general exception of big concentrations of urban-type traffic in "rural" places like Martha's Vineyard, Aspen, the Napa Valley, Yosemite, and Yellowstone, etc., but I digress).
And Frank and Sandy Teal, why so worked up about the cross subsidies paid to keep several thousand micro-post offices open in rural areas?
If a few pennies or a nickel of a $0.46 stamp goes to this purpose, so what? Unlike the massive direct, indirect and hidden subsidies to driving and roads that you don't seem not to care to admit to, at least such cross subsidies are covered within Post Office revenues they actually earn–not the taxpayers– the losses they incur from that stupid pension mandate and dropping overall mail volumes aside.
For the record, out of the <$40 billion or so spent to subsidize transit and Amtrak, probably half ($20 billion) goes towards "social service" type service, e.g., paratansit for seniors and persons with disabilities, and low volume bus systems that cater mainly to persons who can't drive for whatever reason. In general, the financial performance of such services are relatively poor, probably even worse than I-90 or US 2 through Montana.
“And Frank and Sandy Teal, why so worked up about the cross subsidies paid to keep several thousand micro-post offices open in rural areas?”
“Worked up?” You’re projecting.
Why do you want ME to pay to ship YOUR books?
Frank:
Why do you want ME to pay to ship YOUR books?
Frank, you keep repeating a bullshit point and I wonder why you seem “worked up” about it, i.e., obsessed with the point. You’re the one “projecting,” dude.
Why won’t you answer instead of deflecting?
Why does someone living on a large rural ranch/vineyard outside Napa need an apartment dweller in the city to pay to ship his books?
msetty wrote:
CPZ, if we’re going to argue subsidies to rural areas, let’s not forget the inordinate subsidies to rural Interstates, state highways and local rural roads.
Not “inordinate” at all – because those rural highway (interstate and otherwise) are make up a U.S. and North American network (island jurisdictions such as Hawaii, Puerto Rico and certain parts of Alaska excepted). The national value of this highway system is greater than the sum of its parts because it is a working network that serves a very large and very diverse set of places.
Take Montana, for example. I strongly suspect when all costs are accounted for including the original construction costs, ongoing maintenance and periodic reconstruction are accounted for, Interstate 90 through Montana probably recovers a lower percentage of its costs than the parallel Amtrak Empire Builder along the US 2 corridor. Heck, US 2 is probably a huge loser by any accounting standard, probably losing even more per trip and per passenger/vehicle mile than I-90 mainly because its ADT is an order of magnitude smaller.
The highway network of Montana is part of the highway network of the United States and North America, and I reject out of hand your assertions above, because you have failed to account for the network part.
Similarly, when all auto- and highway-related costs to society and the economy into account that the auto/highway apologist shills refuse to acknowledge are, and have been driven for 90+ years, by the government-operated “highway tail” that wags the “auto/highway dog,” the results are similar. Such costs that are NEVER admitted to by the auto/highway apologist shills refuse to acknowledge who comment here and elsewhere include the hundreds of billions annually that subsidize parking public and private, the $200 billion+ cost to the health system of auto-related injuries NOT paid by auto insurance, as well as the usual costs cited by enviros such as air pollution, oil pollution, the cost of Middle Eastern wars to keep the oil flowing, and so forth. All told the direct, indirect and hidden subsidies to driving probably exceeds $1 trillion annually, the lion’s share within our cities and roughly the same quantity that people spend on the act of driving.
Users of the highway network paid a lot of money to build the network, and they pay a lot of money to operate and maintain the network. They also pay a lot to keep (mostly urban) transit systems running, even though they are only part of the national network with the help of highway and in a few cases, the air transport network.
So when people complain about the relatively microscopic total subsidies that go to Amtrak and transit (<$40 billion/yr including capital), I just go HA! HA! HA!
So what happens if Amtrak goes away? In most of the United States, nothing. What happens if federal highway user revenues diverted to transit go away?
If a few pennies or a nickel of a $0.46 stamp goes to this purpose, so what? Unlike the massive direct, indirect and hidden subsidies to driving and roads that you don’t seem not to care to admit to, at least such cross subsidies are covered within Post Office revenues they actually earn–not the taxpayers– the losses they incur from that stupid pension mandate and dropping overall mail volumes aside.
Those highway “subsidies” are federal and state taxes and other fees paid by highway users (but you knew that).
msetty – I reached out an olive branch and you bit my hand! All my comments so far are mocking the tax on e-mail to subsidize the Pony Express. Despite all your huffing and puffing, I suspect you think that is not just stupid, but a ridiculous idea. Join in the mocking!
I totally support rural post office delivery and interstate highways across the country. Interstate commerce and postal service is a Constitutional responsibility of the federal government. If the US won’t do that, then it should give the land to Canada and Mexico. Sure it is a subsidy to rural areas. And there a thousand other subsidies to urban areas in the federal budget. Heck, the federal government even pays more to federal workers in urban areas than doing the same job in rural areas. Pays more to doctors too, which makes no sense if you are trying to contain health care costs.
Why is a city beltway or highway within one state paid for as an “interstate” highway? Pork.
The biggest postal service subsidy to rural areas is just the first class stamp and the USPS monopoly on first class mail. You could deliver mail within NYC for $.03 per letter, but the USPS charges $0.43. You could even shovel mail from major cities to other major cities for $0.10. But no country in the world does that. It strikes to the heart of what being a nation really means. Plus it doesn’t add up to much of a subsidy. It is peanuts.
I don’t think anybody would notice if the USPS moved to 3 days a week delivery. But it has to be universal, or else the US ceases to be a nation.
The US ceases to be a nation without the post office?
“postal service is a Constitutional responsibility of the federal government”
No. It’s a grant of constitutional power. Congress is not constitutionally mandated to create a post office.
I love it when the Constitution is invoked. Here’s Thomas Jefferson’s prescient Post Office forecast:
Have you considered all the consequences of your proposition respecting post roads? I view it as a source of boundless patronage to the executive, jobbing to members of Congress & their friends, and a bottomless abyss of public money. You will begin by only appropriating the surplus of the post office revenues; but the other revenues will soon be called into their aid, and it will be a scene of eternal scramble among the members, who can get the most money wasted in their State; and they will always get most who are meanest.
The US ceases to be a nation without the post office?
Yeah, didn’t you see that Kevin Costner movie?
No. It’s a grant of constitutional power. Congress is not constitutionally mandated to create a post office.
This. There is no mandate.
And lastly, let me say this. I’d like to see Congress scrap the pension pre-funding requirement, for no other reason that it would remove the political cover for allowing the USPS and its political allies to avoid undertaking the real reforms that are needed in an industry that is already in decline.
Mail volumes have been declining for well over a decade and the USPS loses billions per year beyond the costs of its required pension payments. Yet every time someone points this out, the predictable response (repeated again here by MSetty) is that they would be doing just fine if not for having to pre-fund their pensions. It isn’t true, and this won’t be obvious until the straw man is finally burned to the ground.
Michael Setty hasn’t repeated. He’s ripped off Wikipedia. The similarities are undeniable.
Wikipedia entry on United States Postal Service:
“The USPS has not directly received taxpayer-dollars since the early 1980s with the minor exception of subsidies for costs associated with the disabled and overseas voters. Since the 2006 all-time peak mail volume, after which Congress passed the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act”, which mandated $5.5 billion per year to be paid into an account to pre-fund retiree health-care, 75 years into the future, (a requirement unique among organizations and businesses in the U.S.), revenue dropped sharply due to recession-influenced declining mail volume, prompting the postal service to look to other sources of revenue while cutting costs to reduce its budget deficit.”
Then there is Michael Setty’s Wiki summary:
“Until the Repug Congress started to demand that the USPS pay for 75 years of pensions–something demanded of no other quasi-governmental agency or private company, for that matter–the USPS has managed to cope (as well as a government entity “copes” anyway) with steadily reduced mail volumes, and has not been subsidized by taxes since the early 1980?s years of Ronnie Reagan.”
Of course, he sprinkled in original gems like “Repug” and “Ronnie Reagan,” but those are, again, his only real “contributions” to the discussion.
Still waiting for Michael Setty to explain why others should pay to ship his books.
Underline tag isn’t working. Also note these similarities:
“not directly received taxpayer-dollars since the early 1980s”
“and has not been subsidized by taxes since the early 1980s”
We learn two things here. First, apostrophes aren’t used in dates. Second, if a passage of Setty’s writing isn’t laden with name calling, it’s probably a summary of Wikipedia.