The cost of shipping

Fedex: .1 pound package from Philadelphia to Los Angeles costs a minimum of $11.32 and will take 4 days.

UPS: default .5 pound, letter from Philadelphia to Los Angeles costs a minimum of $27.08 and will take 2 days.

USPS: Priority Mail letter from Philadelphia to Los Angeles costs $4.95 and will get there in 2 days and I can mail it on a Saturday. Or I could just mail a letter that will get there in a few days anyway and pay a maximum of $0.44.

Is there an alternative I don’t know about? How would you mail something if there was no Post Office? Why would anyone even want to get rid of the Post Office? Communication of this sort was considered so important that we’ve had a postal service in this country since before we were a country. It all started in 1775 and support for it is even written into the Constitution. Free delivery (RFD) was even started in the late 19th century to keep people in remote parts of the nation connected to the rest of the country in a practical and affordable way.

So why get rid of the post office?

Fun facts:
The Post Office supports itself with stamps, postal fees, PO boxes and selling some shipping products and such. It does not receive one cent in tax dollars. Zero, zip, zilch, nada. If you don’t mail anything then none of your money goes to the Post Office.

The Post Office is only in the red because 5 years ago Congress – which gets to set the rules even though they provide no money for the service – mandated that the USPS fund its pension 75 years in advance. In other words, the USPS must fund its pension for people who may some day work for them but who not only don’t work for them now but they won’t even be born for 50 years. ETA: And they have to do this in just 10 years.

I suppose it’s only a coincidence that not only does this bankrupt the USPS for no good reason, but it also puts billions of dollars into a government controlled fund while also threatening the future of an organization that employs hundreds of thousands of union members.

This could be fixed very easily. The Post Office could be saved from bankruptcy by a vote from Congress that would not cost one cent.

Sure, email has cut back on letters, but the Post Office was and could go on doing just fine if Congress let it. Of course people complain when the cost of a stamp goes up – it’s human nature. A first class letter cost 5 cents when I was a kid, now it’s 44 cents. Is that really so much? What are the alternatives?