The head of the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) is expected to tell Congress on Tuesday that the agency needs to increase its borrowing capacity or face “the end of the Postal Service as we know it now.”
“In order to ensure our survival beyond next year, we need to increase our borrowing capacity so that we don’t run out of cash,” Postmaster General David Steiner’s written testimony obtained by Reuters said. “The failure to do this could lead to the end of the Postal Service as we know it now.”
USPS, which delivers to more than 170 million U.S. addresses six days a week, has a borrowing cap of $15 billion and has already hit that limit.
Amazon will do it for a song and a dance. Just ask Jeff “the humanitarian” Bezos. Man has every American’s well-being at heart. Such a sweetheart.
jainyday on
Totally isn’t intended to disenfranchise mail-in voters.
ianrl337 on
Don’t they still have to keep an insane amount of cash on hand for pensions out to 30 years? More than any company normally and can do.
JFJinCO on
DeJoy knew they were sabotaging it, and got out before it could be blamed on him.
biscuitarse on
Taking the ‘public service’ out of the American Postal Service. Ain’t unfettered capitalism grand?
Grantagonist on
I can’t figure out why Democrats can’t make an issue out of this in messaging to rural areas where the Post Office is probably an important institution/utility in towns. I’m sure most people will realize that they’re not going to get a better deal from FedEx and UPS.
KaliMau on
This has been their whole plan. Privatize. Profiteer. And destabilize democracy.
Another FAFO moment for rural trump voters. That last leg of deliveries to rural areas is usually done by USPS. Why? Not profitable.
From AI: The USPS “final leg” or last-mile delivery network connects over 170 million addresses, providing the crucial final step of shipping from local postal units to homes or businesses.
w4rma on
Billionaires stopped building things a while ago. Now they just destroy, pillage, and abuse children.
intentionalfrowning on
This postmaster general was on the board of directors for FedEx in case you’re wondering what direction this is going
FluidFisherman6843 on
Just a reminder that there is more constitutional basis for the post office than there is for a standing military.
SuperstitiousPigeon5 on
It’s a service, it’s guaranteed by the constitution. Go fuck yourself.
oxdeaddeed on
If we can afford to go to war with a country every other week, we can afford to fund the damn mailman
KeepCalmCarryOnKY on
Right before midterms, right?
MiloGoesToTheFatFarm on
Buying stamps and sending stuff via usps is fundamentally American.
Unique-Coffee5087 on
One thing that people don’t realize is that the United States has some of the cheapest first-class mail in the world. A domestic letter in the Netherlands costs about 1.2 euros, which is about $1.30. a domestic letter within the United States, which is a huge area, costs about $0.80. A first class domestic letter in the UK would cost the equivalent of a $2.25.
I do not understand why people complain about the US postal service as though it were inefficient. Especially considering that it has to provide service to far-flung rural addresses without a surcharge.
RoutineCowMan on
It’s a service, fucking fund it instead of blowing up innocent girls in Iran.
The Republicans wanted this forever, and they are evil for destroying a great institution.
takesjuantogrowone on
Don’t forget the underlying racist motivations:
>Postal jobs have long been a road to the middle-class for Black Americans. The Postal Service began employing Black workers shortly after the Civil War and became a major source of good, middle-class jobs for this share of the workforce in the early 20th century.
>In 2022, Black workers made up 29.0 percent of the Postal Service workforce — more than double their 12.6 percent share of the total U.S. labor force. According to Institute for Policy Studies analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics data, postal workers have by far the highest median annual wage ($51,730) and the highest median hourly wage ($24.87) among the 10 occupations with the heaviest representation of Black workers.
So dumb, it’s a constitutionally required government service, not a business, it can run at a defecit. Probably would help if we cut the cash needed to cover the pension from 75 years down just a bit…
TeutonJon78 on
And the messed up part is that our Constitution, whichbis rather light on laying out actual powers and responsibilities, explicitly says the federal government needs to run a postal service.
So just chuck in onto the pile of Consitutional crises we’ve got going.
shilgrod on
Why can’t Americans understand that part of the role of government is to provide the services that the market won’t, or at least refuse to at a reasonable price.
The post office isn’t a business that should expect record profits every quarter. It’s a service for the people to ensure that they can receive bills.
SamsonAight on
“Billions already lost,” IT’S A SERVICE. IT ISNT SUPPOSED TO BE PROFITABLE.
Dependent_Tune_1333 on
Literally in the body of the Constitution
LemmingLou on
Did I miss the past where the Postal Service stopped being a Constitutionally-Mandated Service?
jbm793 on
It’s a public service… it doesn’t lose money. It costs money to operate. Just like the military… no one says the military lost $900 billion last year. This is how they (and by “they” I mean the GOP) keeping taking away core functions of the government – they keep coming up with formulations that twist the meaning of public services. Don’t fall for it.
carterartist on
The Constitution mandates its existence
ZealousidealDot4545 on
So the military can spend and spend, but the postal services “loses” money each year. They are both public services paid for by the government but each is talked about differently. People are so stupid when they fall for this BS.
GiantJabberwocky on
This is a national security issue that I don’t think many people understand. The postal service is a way to get a physical object (information, vaccine, food, water, etc) to every citizen in the US. It’s purpose isn’t to be “profitable”, it’s a service.
Sirenista_D on
How about USPS raise the bulk rates on the corporations insistent on clogging our mail service with commercials and trash? Could that be a possibility?
payle_knite on
The United States Postal Service (it was never the ‘United States Postal Business’) was mandated by the constitution as a common good. Oligarchs scooping up and privatizing state-owned industries just like they did at the fall of the Soviet Union.
Low-Finding-3414 on
>USPS, which delivers to more than 170 million U.S. addresses six days a week, has a borrowing cap of $15 billion and has already hit that limit. The agency has reported net losses of $118 billion since 2007. Its most profitable product, first-class mail, has fallen to its lowest volume since the late 1960s.
The USPS is a not for profit institution and needs to be funded. It’s a constitutionally mandated government service.
The truly hilarious thing about this attempt to dismantle and cripple the USPS is that it will largely impact rural areas which are mostly Republican voters.
36 Comments
…he said with a big smile.
From the article:
The head of the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) is expected to tell Congress on Tuesday that the agency needs to increase its borrowing capacity or face “the end of the Postal Service as we know it now.”
“In order to ensure our survival beyond next year, we need to increase our borrowing capacity so that we don’t run out of cash,” Postmaster General David Steiner’s written testimony obtained by Reuters said. “The failure to do this could lead to the end of the Postal Service as we know it now.”
USPS, which delivers to more than 170 million U.S. addresses six days a week, has a borrowing cap of $15 billion and has already hit that limit.
Read more: [https://www.newsweek.com/postmaster-warns-of-end-of-postal-service-as-we-know-it-11686357?utm_source=reddit&utm_campaign=reddit_influencers](https://www.newsweek.com/postmaster-warns-of-end-of-postal-service-as-we-know-it-11686357?utm_source=reddit&utm_campaign=reddit_influencers)
Just what the GOP wanted for the last decade
Amazon will do it for a song and a dance. Just ask Jeff “the humanitarian” Bezos. Man has every American’s well-being at heart. Such a sweetheart.
Totally isn’t intended to disenfranchise mail-in voters.
Don’t they still have to keep an insane amount of cash on hand for pensions out to 30 years? More than any company normally and can do.
DeJoy knew they were sabotaging it, and got out before it could be blamed on him.
Taking the ‘public service’ out of the American Postal Service. Ain’t unfettered capitalism grand?
I can’t figure out why Democrats can’t make an issue out of this in messaging to rural areas where the Post Office is probably an important institution/utility in towns. I’m sure most people will realize that they’re not going to get a better deal from FedEx and UPS.
This has been their whole plan. Privatize. Profiteer. And destabilize democracy.
https://truthout.org/articles/the-gop-has-every-reason-to-want-the-us-postal-service-to-fail/
https://www.epi.org/publication/the-war-against-the-postal-service/
How many years would one day of war cover?
Wasn’t that why he was put in that position?
Another FAFO moment for rural trump voters. That last leg of deliveries to rural areas is usually done by USPS. Why? Not profitable.
From AI: The USPS “final leg” or last-mile delivery network connects over 170 million addresses, providing the crucial final step of shipping from local postal units to homes or businesses.
Billionaires stopped building things a while ago. Now they just destroy, pillage, and abuse children.
This postmaster general was on the board of directors for FedEx in case you’re wondering what direction this is going
Just a reminder that there is more constitutional basis for the post office than there is for a standing military.
It’s a service, it’s guaranteed by the constitution. Go fuck yourself.
If we can afford to go to war with a country every other week, we can afford to fund the damn mailman
Right before midterms, right?
Buying stamps and sending stuff via usps is fundamentally American.
One thing that people don’t realize is that the United States has some of the cheapest first-class mail in the world. A domestic letter in the Netherlands costs about 1.2 euros, which is about $1.30. a domestic letter within the United States, which is a huge area, costs about $0.80. A first class domestic letter in the UK would cost the equivalent of a $2.25.
I do not understand why people complain about the US postal service as though it were inefficient. Especially considering that it has to provide service to far-flung rural addresses without a surcharge.
It’s a service, fucking fund it instead of blowing up innocent girls in Iran.
The Republicans wanted this forever, and they are evil for destroying a great institution.
Don’t forget the underlying racist motivations:
>Postal jobs have long been a road to the middle-class for Black Americans. The Postal Service began employing Black workers shortly after the Civil War and became a major source of good, middle-class jobs for this share of the workforce in the early 20th century.
>In 2022, Black workers made up 29.0 percent of the Postal Service workforce — more than double their 12.6 percent share of the total U.S. labor force. According to Institute for Policy Studies analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics data, postal workers have by far the highest median annual wage ($51,730) and the highest median hourly wage ($24.87) among the 10 occupations with the heaviest representation of Black workers.
https://inequality.org/article/postal-service-jobs-black-workers/
So dumb, it’s a constitutionally required government service, not a business, it can run at a defecit. Probably would help if we cut the cash needed to cover the pension from 75 years down just a bit…
And the messed up part is that our Constitution, whichbis rather light on laying out actual powers and responsibilities, explicitly says the federal government needs to run a postal service.
So just chuck in onto the pile of Consitutional crises we’ve got going.
Why can’t Americans understand that part of the role of government is to provide the services that the market won’t, or at least refuse to at a reasonable price.
The post office isn’t a business that should expect record profits every quarter. It’s a service for the people to ensure that they can receive bills.
“Billions already lost,” IT’S A SERVICE. IT ISNT SUPPOSED TO BE PROFITABLE.
Literally in the body of the Constitution
Did I miss the past where the Postal Service stopped being a Constitutionally-Mandated Service?
It’s a public service… it doesn’t lose money. It costs money to operate. Just like the military… no one says the military lost $900 billion last year. This is how they (and by “they” I mean the GOP) keeping taking away core functions of the government – they keep coming up with formulations that twist the meaning of public services. Don’t fall for it.
The Constitution mandates its existence
So the military can spend and spend, but the postal services “loses” money each year. They are both public services paid for by the government but each is talked about differently. People are so stupid when they fall for this BS.
This is a national security issue that I don’t think many people understand. The postal service is a way to get a physical object (information, vaccine, food, water, etc) to every citizen in the US. It’s purpose isn’t to be “profitable”, it’s a service.
How about USPS raise the bulk rates on the corporations insistent on clogging our mail service with commercials and trash? Could that be a possibility?
The United States Postal Service (it was never the ‘United States Postal Business’) was mandated by the constitution as a common good. Oligarchs scooping up and privatizing state-owned industries just like they did at the fall of the Soviet Union.
>USPS, which delivers to more than 170 million U.S. addresses six days a week, has a borrowing cap of $15 billion and has already hit that limit. The agency has reported net losses of $118 billion since 2007. Its most profitable product, first-class mail, has fallen to its lowest volume since the late 1960s.
The USPS is a not for profit institution and needs to be funded. It’s a constitutionally mandated government service.
The truly hilarious thing about this attempt to dismantle and cripple the USPS is that it will largely impact rural areas which are mostly Republican voters.