Congress created Post Office problems.

POST OFFICE MUST COMPETE WITH CONGRESSIONAL MANDATES

RATHER THAN SUBSIDIZE, FIX THE LEGACY PROBLEMS

In 1970, congress supposedly privatized the U.S. Post office. They were mandated to become self sufficient on their postal fees and do without government subsidies. This sounded good, but congress also mandated rules for health care and pensions that place the Post Office at a competitive disadvantage to UPS and Fed -EX. 

In 2006 congress passed the Post office accountability and enhancement Act. This mandated that the Post office have a health care reserve Fund that requires them to place $5.5 Billion a year into reserves. This money is to used to provide health insurance for post retirement employees. Employees can retire after 20 years of service with a reduced rate, but it seems they can continue to collect health insurance benefits. 

When they so called privatized the Post Office they should have allowed them to set up their own pensions and healthcare plans to be competitive with the private sector. Both UPS and Fed-ex have good benefits but they are not like the Federal government benefits that have little accountability. Most government benefits are financed by just raising taxes, without any attempt to modernize these benefits. The Post Office competitors are continually changing and adapting to the times.

I have shipped hundreds of items a year for the last 20 years with the post office and they do a good job. All the horror stories about how bad the post office is exaggerated. The Post office must compete with ever changing competition. The Post office dominates in letters and small light weigh packages. Fed-Ex regular overnight and Fed-Ex ground heavy bulky items. UPS is sort of the middle between the two. There also other providers that specialize in oversees. 

All shippers offer discounts to large shippers, who process and label all the items and either drop off at the post office or have Trucks parked at customers to be loaded with  these pres-labeled and sorted items. This saves all of them costs. These services are available to anyone with an account.

The solution is not for the Post Office to raise their prices as they will be killed by the competition. They need to be given the ability to compete in their cost of benefits. Instead the Post Office is now attempting to close their deficits by becoming more efficient. While this is always good, they cannot do that weighted down by noncompetitive legacy costs. 

Congress needs to allow the Post Office to be truly competitive without subsidies. They should be given certain guidelines and then let them work it out. 

The Post Office is unique in that they are mandated to ship to the furthest places in the country and provide access in many locations. I believe they do a good job.