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ashdksnndck | on: USPS now offers official ZIP Code boundary polygons
Congress has mandated that USPS has to be self-funding. If the leadership at USPS fails to raise revenue, they are forced to cut services. You could write a letter to your senator.
limagnolia | parent | next
Less junk mail? Junk mail only 5 days a week instead of 6? Sounds like a good deal to me!
Jenkins2000 | root | parent
I was very saddened to find out that junk mail is what funds the postal service.
jojobas | parent | next
>You could write a letter to your senator.

Would take way more than one letter to make USPS profitable.

jmb99 | root | parent
The point is to state that USPS should not need to be profitable. Governments (and government-run services) shouldn’t exist to be profitable.
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IcyWindows | parent
Write to tell your senator to have USPS pay for unlimited usage of their service/data by other companies?
nonethewiser | root | parent | next
No to remove the cap on pricing. USPS was break even from 1970-2006 until the 2006 law that forbid them from raising prices. The business mailers love it though.
linkjuice4all | root | parent
Companies are already using the roads, police, fire services (where applicable) and many other government services without paying directly for them. But the taxes! you'll scream - yes exactly!

Standard communication (including addressing) is such a basic, critical function of government that it only makes sense to do it at scale and just fund it with taxes.

jasomill | root | parent | next
One could make a good argument that broadband and mobile data services are more basic and critical than mail delivery at this point.
fsckboy | root | parent | next
>Standard communication (including addressing) is such a basic, critical function of government that it only makes sense to do it at scale and just fund it with taxes.

Your approach leads to exploding federal budgets, which are already the bane of the US, Canada, and the EU. When will you learn? Everything is not the exception, everything is the problem.

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alwa | root | parent
Tragedy of the commons thing, though, right?

Speaking for a patchwork of samples that have fascinated me in the U.S.—New developments tend to incur impact fees to offset their immediate effects on the roads, sewers, and sidewalks. Police charge a fee to connect your alarm system to their dispatchers, an hourly wage for an off-duty cop to stand guard at your commercial premise, and a fine if you waste their time with false alarms… in some cases they attempt, at least notionally, to recoup the cost of the investigation from criminals upon conviction (I hear the collections rates are unimpressive…). Heck, some places bill inmates for each night in jail! [0]

Fire services tend to send you a bill for a false alarm, a fee for an inspection and, if you did it on purpose, a criminal charge plus the full cost of the response. And lord forbid you accept EMS services…

All are tax-funded, but all gesture at apportioning costs in relation to use. If they send this much junk mail while it’s quarters-a-pop, how much would they send if it were free…

[0] seriously! https://www.flsheriffs.org/uploads/Subsistence%20Fee%20Final...