USPS RIP
Looks like Trump wants to kill the US Postal Service. Postmaster General DeJoy has been bent on killing the USPS in a death by a thousand cuts. The Trump administration will try to kill it outright, and hand over its responsibility to the private sector. Ironic, because the big losers will be rural residents that overwhelmingly vote Republican.
Makes no difference to me. I live in a city. Most of my bills are paid online, most of my correspondence is by email and if I need a dead tree document delivered quickly, I can afford FedEx.
How will working class and middle class Americans react when (a) the cost of a 1st class stamp goes to $2, (b) they have to drive miles to retrieve their “mail,” and (c) Saturday delivery disappears?
Makes no difference to me. I live in a city. Most of my bills are paid online, most of my correspondence is by email and if I need a dead tree document delivered quickly, I can afford FedEx.
How will working class and middle class Americans react when (a) the cost of a 1st class stamp goes to $2, (b) they have to drive miles to retrieve their “mail,” and (c) Saturday delivery disappears?
I dare anyone to go to the UPS location in town and the Post Office and tell me that UPS is doing a better job. Need to use UPS because it is a prepaid return? You better know their hours, which are not 9-5. And be prepared to wait in line, and not under a roof if the line is more than 4 people long. At least it is only a 15 minute drive for me. The rest of the valley can add 20 or 40 or 60 minutes to that.
Cost? I can see where the USPS is losing money. 67 pound package for under $10? Love those flat rates. They will play catch up when I mail less than a pound in the same size box maybe a year or two later. I stopped using UPS when I found out that the USPS could deliver a day earlier and for a third the cost. When and if I need to send something the USPS cannot handle, then UPS is necessary.
They do know that currently UPS uses USPS for the last mile delivery? Those cheaper “free” deliveries almost always come USPS to my house, even if they are UPS to start with. FedEx seems to do mostly paperwork and not packages around here.
Of course the area is mostly Republican. The general public had a fit when they talked about moving the PO to a bigger area less than 2 miles away. Yes it would be more inconvenient for 75% of the people, being currently almost dead center of downtown. Yes the current parking is barely adequate during the day. But barely adequate is still adequate, and the worst case is drive around the block once. Not that you have a choice on that if you don’t find a spot in the lot, the only way out is onto the next street over. There have been rumors of cutting back delivery for a while, and the people were not happy about that either. We shall see. I see the late delivery and extra day or two to get mail as just a warmup for the next cutbacks. If they go full private, there will be no mail delivery here at all. How will the public react to that? Not well, I can assure you of that.