USPS forced to lower stamps by 2¢, starting Sunday.

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Starting this Sunday the United States Postal Service (USPS) will see the price of it's stamps decrease by a 2¢.
This is the first decrease in the U.S. postage rate since 1919.

No explanation was given for the rate decrease.

The Postal Regulatory Commission (overseas the USPS and price of stamps) gave no reason for the drop in postage, but does confirm it will indeed make the USPS revenue drop by $2 Billion. The Republican majority voted for the postage decrease.
Also the USPS has maxed out it's borrowing limit from the U.S. Treasury this week.

As of now the Republican majority in both houses of Congress are refusing to raise the USPS borrowing limit and give the USPS the necessary power to restructure it's self so it can return to profit.

The USPS doesn't not receive taxpayer money and gets all it's revenue from postage and mailing products.
http://money.cnn.com/2016/04/08/news/co ... -decrease/

why does the right wing dislike USPS?

I don't like them because most mail is junk mail.

They are like the scum that spams your email box.

Enough already with them, they are chronically going broke. They need to hire someone who can balance the budget or shutdown.

A: Because it works.

Seriously, that it works so good (and it really does) indicates to them that it would be profitable if it were a corporation, so they want to privatize it. They've done everything they can to undermine it & run it into the red so that they can say, "a private company could do it faster, cheaper and more reliably".

They've forced it to fully fund all retirements out 75 years.

They've sold off all the best real estate, which means post offices and distribution centers in the middle of population areas - now they have to rely on ones on the outskirts to cover the same area.

Also, I think they just don't like an example that most people have contact with of government working as it should.

chances are, if the righties get their wish and shut it down, there will be no more mail service available where I live. period. a "profitable" mail distribution entity would likely operate only in large cities.

The USPS makes most of its money from junk mail. If the stopped all junk mail it would be out of business.

i'm thankful to have mail service, I hope it doesn't become just a luxury for rich folk.

The biggest problem with the USPS is they have a first class letter monopoly.The monopoly is a curse in another way: When the government grants a monopoly, it demands the right to regulate in return. The Postal Service has to petition the Postal Regulatory Commission, and sometimes Congress, whenever it wants to make a substantial change to its business model. Federal officials have opposed attempts to save money by closing remote post offices and cutting Saturday delivery in the past. The USPS also has the government looking over its shoulder in labor negotiations.

I for one am damned glad they were not forced to close my local post office, I cannot drive to the next county just to pick up my mail, just so Richie rich can have some more goddamned tax cuts.

Because it is a monopoly maintained at gun-point. All prior attempts for private delivery services for first class (sealed) mail have been quashed by Congress and the Courts. The people in rural areas have never paid the full costs of delivery of first class mail to their doorsteps or letter boxes. The USPS is a government subsidized firm that "equalizes" the price of first class mail at the expense of people living in concentrated easy-to-deliver-to areas and favoring people who live out in the boonies.

Fortunately e-mail which is not (thank God) run by the postal service has taken the sting out of the government monopoly on first class mail.

Just purchased 100 "forever" stamps last month -- wish I'd been more aware and deferred the purchase out by a few weeks. Would have saved me 200 cents !

Actually the USPS cannot restructure itself without an act of Congress.
The last attempt at USPS restructuring barely made it out of the House and died in the Senate when the rural states banded together to kill it!

Congress literally controls the full structure of the USPS.

I have no issues with the USPS, they are better and cheaper for me than UPS and DHL (who both are awful carriers).
Only Fedex is as good as the USPS for me.

Some of us believe that the purpose of government is to take the cost of essentials like mail delivery, phone service, road building, electricity, health care and the like and equalize it.

It's based on something called, "compassion" for those less fortunate.

I can see though, how capitalist would love to have everyone living in industrialized cities.

Essential???? Why does the government leave the matter of food production in private hands. Food is more essential than first class sealed mail. Electricity is produced mostly by private firms. Health care is provided mostly by private hospitals and private doctors. Phone service in the U.S. is provided by private firms.

If the government were in charge of food production we would all be standing in line waiting for an insufficient morsel of food. The U.S. is the most overfed nation on earth and it is all done by private land owners and private farmers.

This isn't true.

First off The U.S. government spends hundreds of billions of dollars giving money to farmers per year.
This has lead to a massive overproduction of food in the U.S.
The U.S. Government gave most of the farmland to willing farmers to settle it for practically nothing in the 1800s.

The U.S. Government also built and owned the U.S. Electric Grid until Reagan split it up and sold it.
Reagan claimed that private industry would do a better job a providing the electricity to the country.
He also claimed it would provide for massively cheaper electricity prices and better upkeep of the grid.

Well none of that happened.
Private industry has being raising prices of electricity by double digits each year since the 1990s (when the U.S. Government deregulated the power industry). They also haven't been upkeeping the powerplants and the grid itself because they claim they can't afford to do it due to their shareholders and expense.
The U.S. power grid is one of the worst in the developed world because it hasn't been maintained since it Reagan sold it off.

When Reagan broke up AT&T (which was had a government charter and was a private company) in 1982, he promised us that private industry and competition would drive down the price of phone service and lead to better phone tech.

The newly created phone companies became shareholder driven, mass profit driven companies that went after profit at all costs.

Phone service is now more expensive and worse.

When they deregulated the telecoms in 1999, we were promised even cheaper cell rates, cheaper cable rates, more competition, and massive build out of the broadband network.

Instead we saw cell rates go through the roof to the current prices we have, cable is more expensive than ever before.
The telecoms bought each other out with leaving us with 4 cell carriers that control 90%+ of the U.S. cellphone market directly.

We have 6 ISPs left in the U.S. that control 90%+ of the internet market and 90%+ of the cable market.

The Telecoms are refusing to upgrade their lines and build broadband infrastructure out because it's too expensive to build out and maintain their networks. They are literally asking the U.S. Government to fund it all.

Soon we will be down to 5 ISPs/Cable companies if the U.S. Government approves the Charter buy out TWC.

You know the Telecoms tried to kill the iPhone from being completed because they didn't want smartphones to exist.
AT&T CEO was so desperate to win back marketshare they gave into Steve Job's demands and the rest is history.

Even now said AT&T CEO has repeatedly gone on record claiming he resents letting the iPhone and smartphones come into existence.
He claims the smartphone era is killing all the carriers and costing them tons of money to the point shareholders to revolt.
He claims he wishes smartphones never existed, so all the telecoms could go back to their former profit levels.


As for Hospitals, they are regulated and chartered by the states.
Even then we've seen massive consolidation of hospital owners and a rise in prices at hospitals.

Every industry that has been deregulated has seen it consolidate into an oligopolies that have abused their market positions.

I can't help but suspect that mr. big business doesn't like big government and regulations for the same reason bank robbers and muggers don't like cops.