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by ashdksnndck15 hours ago |
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upvoteby limagnolia13 hours ago|
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Less junk mail? Junk mail only 5 days a week instead of 6? Sounds like a good deal to me!
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upvoteby Jenkins200011 hours ago|
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I was very saddened to find out that junk mail is what funds the postal service.
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upvoteby jojobas15 hours ago|
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>You could write a letter to your senator.

Would take way more than one letter to make USPS profitable.

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upvoteby jmb9915 hours ago|
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The point is to state that USPS should not need to be profitable. Governments (and government-run services) shouldn’t exist to be profitable.
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upvoteby nonethewiser14 hours ago|
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If you want them to exist you they can't just ignore all finances. USPS had a break even mandate from 1970-2006. They projected revenue and priced services to break even. That was scrapped in 2006 and they had a price cap put on services which now puts everything into jeopardy. They havent been break even since.

Their core business has been declining for the past 20 years and business mailer lobbyists work very hard to keep the current price caps. This idea that we should let the finances spin out of control and raise taxes is a recent idea.

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upvoteby jodrellblank3 hours ago|
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Why doesn’t that logic apply to Congress? The President? The Supreme Court? The Police? Highways and interstates? The military? The CDC?
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upvoteby flerovium11414 hours ago|
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Agreed, but you missed the joke
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upvoteby chacha10210 hours ago|
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And it really was a great joke. It caught me by surprise, and I spent more time laughing at it than I should have.
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upvoteby IcyWindows14 hours ago|
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Write to tell your senator to have USPS pay for unlimited usage of their service/data by other companies?
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upvoteby nonethewiser14 hours ago|
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No to remove the cap on pricing. USPS was break even from 1970-2006 until the 2006 law that forbid them from raising prices. The business mailers love it though.
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upvoteby linkjuice4all14 hours ago|
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Companies are already using the roads, police, fire services (where applicable) and many other government services without paying directly for them. But the taxes! you'll scream - yes exactly!

Standard communication (including addressing) is such a basic, critical function of government that it only makes sense to do it at scale and just fund it with taxes.

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upvoteby jasomill45 minutes ago|
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One could make a good argument that broadband and mobile data services are more basic and critical than mail delivery at this point.
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upvoteby fsckboy13 hours ago|
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>Standard communication (including addressing) is such a basic, critical function of government that it only makes sense to do it at scale and just fund it with taxes.

Your approach leads to exploding federal budgets, which are already the bane of the US, Canada, and the EU. When will you learn? Everything is not the exception, everything is the problem.

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upvoteby jodrellblank3 hours ago|
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It leads to a growing society which generates more taxes to fund the growing budgets. A virtuous circle.

When will you learn? Taxes are not “the bane” of the EU, taxes are why It’s a nice place to live and America isn’t.

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upvoteby alwa13 hours ago|
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Tragedy of the commons thing, though, right?

Speaking for a patchwork of samples that have fascinated me in the U.S.—New developments tend to incur impact fees to offset their immediate effects on the roads, sewers, and sidewalks. Police charge a fee to connect your alarm system to their dispatchers, an hourly wage for an off-duty cop to stand guard at your commercial premise, and a fine if you waste their time with false alarms… in some cases they attempt, at least notionally, to recoup the cost of the investigation from criminals upon conviction (I hear the collections rates are unimpressive…). Heck, some places bill inmates for each night in jail! [0]

Fire services tend to send you a bill for a false alarm, a fee for an inspection and, if you did it on purpose, a criminal charge plus the full cost of the response. And lord forbid you accept EMS services…

All are tax-funded, but all gesture at apportioning costs in relation to use. If they send this much junk mail while it’s quarters-a-pop, how much would they send if it were free…

[0] seriously! https://www.flsheriffs.org/uploads/Subsistence%20Fee%20Final...

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