The USPS is the quintessential example of a poorly run government service. The USPS was already bailed out with $10 Billion in March 2020 and the USPS projects to be out of money again in September. The USPS loses $2 Billion per month and there is no plan to ever reverse course. For normal businesses this is called insolvency and the result would be a liquidation in bankruptcy where free market competitors could pick up the pieces and create more efficient processes to provide the same services. Instead we have a wasteful government-protected money sinkhole.
The USPS should be dissolved. There is nothing in the US Constitution that requires the Federal government to run a postal service. Article 1, Section 8 merely grants to Congress the right to create post offices and postal roads. It does not require that the US Government operate a postal service.
The necessity for first class postal mail has greatly diminished in the past 30 years since the advent of email, online bill pay, auto debit and other innovations. For many of us, we get few items in our mail boxes other than unsolicited marketing. There is no reason that the USPS could not contract out the delivery of first class postal mail to private carriers. Package delivery, especially quick delivery, reliable package delivery has already been supplanted by private carriers. If the USPS cannot compete we should stop funding its incompetence.
Here is my personal example. A few years ago I represented a fast growing ecommerce company. The Company was shipping tens of thousands of packages per day from its warehouse and we invited all major (and minor) carriers to bid for the millions of dollars of business. FedEx showed up with 2 sharp dressed young local sales reps to make their pitch. UPS sent 1 young local sales rep and he dialed in his manager on the phone to start the meeting. USPS SHOWED UP WITH 7 PEOPLE. These postal employees were not local – they spent money on airline flights, stayed in hotels and rented two cars to come to the meeting. Our conference room was not big enough to accommodate all of the bureaucracy. This is the problem with the post office – too big, too bloated, too inefficient and out of touch with normal business practices.
The decision of whether to defund the post office can and should be 100% separate from the decision to expand voting systems to include ballot submission by mail. There is no question that Texas should make every effort to evaluate, modernize and secure its voting systems.
I support expanded early voting, an expansion of vote by mail, as well as curbside, drive through and ballot drop off voting to ensure that all voters have an opportunity to cast their ballot safely and avoid long voting lines, crowded polling places and related health concerns. I also support efforts to develop secure online voting and other methods that will make casting a ballot convenient, safe and accessible to all for our future. However, whichever expanded process we choose, we should be vigilant to ensure that it not only addresses safety issues, but at the same time introduces measures to preserve and monitor ballot integrity.
Like all issues that face our communities there are not only 2 choices. We can stop wasting taxpayer money on a failed bloated out-of-date inefficient government organization, while at the same time support expanded voting methods, while at the same time maintaining vigilance on electoral integrity and safety.