Dear USPS: Consider privatizing - Fortune
Contrary to what many people might guess, the USPS is not a government agency. It hasn't received direct subsidies since the early 1980s. Aside from a miniscule fraction of its budget for free mail services for the blind and Congress' franking privileges, the Postal Service pays its own way with postage revenues, which in fiscal year 2008, reached $75 billion.
But here's how the USPS is not treated like everyone else: It's exempt from taxes and antitrust law. No one else is allowed to deliver first-class mail. Those are advantages, but on the other hand USPS is subjected to constant meddling from Congress -- for instance, the postmaster general Jack Potter has to ask Congress for permission to reduce a six-day delivery schedule to five in order to save money. And these same politicians get an earful from constituents anytime a local post-office branch, no matter how unprofitable for the USPS, is threatened with closure
Contrary to what many people might guess, the USPS is not a government agency. It hasn't received direct subsidies since the early 1980s. Aside from a miniscule fraction of its budget for free mail services for the blind and Congress' franking privileges, the Postal Service pays its own way with postage revenues, which in fiscal year 2008, reached $75 billion.
But here's how the USPS is not treated like everyone else: It's exempt from taxes and antitrust law. No one else is allowed to deliver first-class mail. Those are advantages, but on the other hand USPS is subjected to constant meddling from Congress -- for instance, the postmaster general Jack Potter has to ask Congress for permission to reduce a six-day delivery schedule to five in order to save money. And these same politicians get an earful from constituents anytime a local post-office branch, no matter how unprofitable for the USPS, is threatened with closure
