name it (not mine) | TheaterFire

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FingerGunzGoBang@reddit

“Why do we pay taxes to the postal service only to pay to use the service then get scolded for using private curriers?”

It’s a longer name but I feel like it fits well.

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USPS doesn't get tax dollars. It's self-funded. The people spreading anti-USPS propaganda either have a financial interest in those private couriers or want a crack at the juicy real estate post offices in big cities are sitting on.

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FingerGunzGoBang@reddit

Incorrect. It gets money through annual appropriations.

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Deeschuck@reddit

While technically true, that's like 0.06% of their budget.

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FingerGunzGoBang@reddit

The USPS operates on a net loss every year. 2018 was a $3.9 billion dollar loss, 2019 was an $8.8 billion dollar loss, 2020 was a $9.2 billion dollar loss, 2021 was a $9.7 billion dollar loss, 2022 was a 9.5 billion dollar loss, 2023 was a $6.5 billion dollar loss, 2024 was $9.5 billion dollar loss, and the 2025 projection is a loss of $6.9 billion.

To say it doesn’t receive tax money IS the propaganda. It’s is solely propped up by the tax payer through annual appropriations and had Trump lost, the PRSA of 2022 would have it be a tax liability line item. It’s a massive hemorrhage of money that need not exist when the private sector does it better and is held liable as an actual business.

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Deeschuck@reddit

The USPS is not a business. As a Service, it does not exist to generate a profit. It is one of the few functions of government actually mandated in the constitution. And it is also mandated to serve all parts of the country, even when the cost of the services exceeds what they are legally allowed to charge for them.

Do you think it's a good idea to make it more expensive for poor people living out in the country to get their mail or their meds? Or hell, if there's not enough profit in it, UPS and Fedex can just decide to stop making deliveries to BFE.

Using your numbers, the annual 'loss' is 0.1% of the federal budget. I don't think that qualifies as a 'massive hemorrhage.' Especially when it provides the array of services that it does, especially to people who live outside more urbanized areas.

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FingerGunzGoBang@reddit

Your egalitarian attempt to win me over isn’t going to work. If not a business and by your logic, then why isn’t it free? Your MMT Socialist view of economics isn’t even a complete thought and no amount of semantic dot connecting is going to change the fact that they operate on a large net negative. It doesn’t matter if in the grand scheme it’s not as bad as X. When your loss is 1/3 of your revenue it’s a massive hemorrhage. There isn’t a business nor service with the same numbers that is able to exist on any level outside government.

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Deeschuck@reddit

I mean, okay. IDK what MMT Socialist means but whatever.

Budget- 79B

Loss- 9B

That's not 1/3.

Again, the USPS doesn't exist outside of government. It's literally a constitutionally mandated service. I guess I'm ok with tax dollars propping up the USPS to a degree. Much more so than with a lot of things the government spends money on for sure. But they have to charge something because otherwise you'd get kids mailing pallets of bricks back and forth to each other all over the country i.e. demand would vastly outstrip capacity and the whole system would crumble.

I'm not an expert on it or anything; it just bugs the fuck out of me when I see people attacking one of the few government entities that is actually doing good for the American people.

Nice chatting with you though.

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FingerGunzGoBang@reddit

I’m unsure if you understand. It’s not turning any profit. It’s operating at a $6-9 billion loss every year for the past 15 years. So, take that $79 billion and burn it, then burn another $6-9 Billion.

Would be a pretty sweet deal if I could operate a business under such conditions. But what good is a service if it’s not able to sustain itself and the people have to pay for it even when they don’t use it, under the threat of violence and loss of freedom, only to have to pay again when they do use it? Where are your ethics there?

Also, I abstained from critiquing your constitutional claim because I wasn’t sure what you meant exactly. But just in case, Article I, section 8, clause 7 does not mention the USPS by name. It grants Congress the power to establish a postal service and roads. They can just as well end it.

I have no idea what you’re trying to say about kids not shipping pallets of bricks due to cost. Can I perhaps get a less hyperbolic analogy?

MMT - Modern Monetary Theory. You should do some reading on this. It’s an economic theory with a tenet of taxes not being used for revenue, rather as a tool to manage demand and inflation. Meaning the government can spend into oblivion and rack up massive deficits, and spend through them, because fiat currency isn’t real.

I wouldn’t consider myself an expert either but I am extremely well read, possibly overly educated, and enjoy the spirit of debate. I do appreciate the conversation and your ability hold the emotion to have it. Rare for this site.

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Deeschuck@reddit

I understand that it's not making a profit. What I am saying is that if the PO costs the country 6-9 bil a year all told that's not the worst use of tax dollars. It is subsidizing the service of delivering mail to the whole country at standardized rates and providing good jobs to over half a million Americans.

The verbiage in your second paragraph leads me to speculate that you are of the position that 'all taxation is theft' which, while I sympathize with that, we do have taxes, and we do spend it on stuff far worse than universal mail service. I have to pay taxes and they use my money to confiscate people's weed, arm terrorists with guns I'm not allowed to own, and play golf. I'm not really cool with any of that.

Yes, I am referring to the postal clause, and you are correct that it does not specify the USPS by name, which makes sense since the organization had not been created at that point. My point with that is that congress is specifically authorized in the constitution to build roads, carry the mail, and provide for the common defense, and that if we are looking to cut wasteful spending, then saving the stuff that's actually in the constitution for last makes more sense than targeting a valuable public service so billionaires can profit from its dissolution.

The brick example was indeed hyperbolic; all I was trying to illustrate was that if the service were totally free, it would get overwhelmed, and cost even more tax dollars.

And thanks for the MMT summary.