In the twilight of 1996, the Republican Congress knew their number was up; in less than a month, they would be replaced with a Democratic Congress. One of their farewell parting shots is still with us - an attempt to essentially break the United States Postal Service, that hardened their earlier, 2003 attempt to do the same.
You see, despite their hypocritical and constant admonitions that the United States should be run like a business, even the parts that are supposed to use business fiscal principles don't actually get any support from the GOP. For its entire history, the Postal Service has been self-sufficient - despite maintaining outposts in extremely rural areas (to serve our citizens, as it should) and giving massive rate decreases on bulk mailing (which, I believe, is the result of much lobbying from the Chamber of Commerce... because find me any private citizen who thinks IRL spam mail is neat?)
Not good enough, however. The Republicans have mandated that the USPS prefund their retiree benefits seventy-five years in advance. Someone who worked at Enron would have been pleasantly surprised to get a pension that had been prefunded seventy-five days in advance. But if we ever did much regulation on that end, I'm sure someone would find a way to call it communism.
The Republicans have mandated that the USPS stop using surpluses to pay off its own debts and liabilities. We stand on the eve of the third major default from the Postal Service. What the hell happens next? How could they have adjourned for the year without even looking at the relief that was voted upon by the Democratic Senate?
Finally, the Republicans have set price ceilings on the Postal Service's rates. Very hard ones that cannot keep up with the rate of inflation. This is, sadly, the most minor of the issues currently facing the Postal Offices of America - that merely condemns them to a slow death, especially as it suffers continual bleeding from the continuing advancement of telecommunications. I no longer buy stamps to deposit checks to my long-distance credit union, I can just use an app on my phone...
And if they think that the Postal Service can just be effectively replaced by the private sector, they have a (surprise, surprise) problem with reality. As I mentioned, the USPS had long managed to be self-sufficient - that is true. It also has an established infrastructure far more suited to its much higher delivery volume. It also does things that are not optimal for shareholders, like the rural outposts and spam mail enabling. These are things that no business would engage in if they were not obligated to provide a service to the community - simply because they -can- do it without hurting their profit line overly much does not mean that they -will- do it.
Congressional Republicans have savaged one of the few elements of the government that ran mostly like a business - and did so effectively. And now we stand on the eve of the third major default from the Postal Service. What the hell happens next?
(I did come across an interesting suggestion to let the USPS operate a small bank. Not sure what I think about it yet!)