Postal
Service of the United States -Mobile
FREE NEWS LINKS
HOME
SEARCH
Updates & changes ongoing ....
----
Although this site is https-secure, we cannot guarantee that it or any
provided links are safe; be sure your antivirus and other security systems are
up to date.
Also see: Amazon;
Jump to: 2017; 2018; 2019;
2020;
Undated:
The United States Postal Service (USPS; also known as
the Post Office, U.S. Mail, or Postal Service) is an
independent agency of the executive branch of the
United States federal government responsible for providing
postal service in
the United States, including its
insular areas and
associated states. It is one of the few government agencies
explicitly authorized by the
United States Constitution.
The U.S. Mail traces its roots to 1775 during the
Second Continental Congress, when
Benjamin Franklin was appointed the first
postmaster general. The
Post Office Department was created in
1792 from Franklin's operation. It was elevated to a
cabinet-level department in 1872, and was transformed by the Postal
Reorganization Act in 1970 into the USPS as an independent agency.[4]
The USPS as of 2017 has 644,124 active employees and operated 211,264 vehicles
in 2014. The USPS is the operator of the largest civilian
vehicle fleet in the world.[2]
The USPS is legally obligated to serve all Americans, regardless of geography,
at uniform price and quality. The USPS has exclusive access to
letter
boxes marked "U.S. Mail" and personal letterboxes in the United States, but
now has to compete against private
package delivery services, such as
United Parcel Service and
FedEx.[5]
Since the early 1980s, many of the direct tax subsidies to the Post Office, with
the exception of subsidies for costs associated with the disabled and overseas
voters, have been reduced or eliminated in favor of indirect subsidies, in
addition to the advantages associated with a government-enforced monopoly on the
delivery of first-class mail.[6]
Since the 2006 all-time peak mail volume,[7]
after which Congress passed the
Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act[8]
which mandated that $5.5 billion per year be paid to fully prefund employee
retirement health benefits,[9]
revenue dropped sharply due to recession-influenced[10]
declining mail volume,[11]
prompting the postal service to look to other sources of revenue while cutting
costs to reduce its budget deficit.[12]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Postal_Service
-- 2017 --
December 29: On Friday morning, President
Donald Trump decided to take on the U.S. Postal Service.
"Why is the United States Post Office, which is losing many billions of dollars
a year, while charging Amazon and others so little to deliver their packages,
making Amazon richer and the Post Office dumber and poorer?" he
wrote on Twitter. "Should be charging MUCH MORE!"
http://money.cnn.com/2017/12/29/news/economy/trump-amazon-postal-service/index.html
December 30: Dumb and Dumber: Donald Trump
on Amazon and the Postal Service
http://cepr.net/blogs/beat-the-press/dumb-and-dumber-donald-trump-on-amazon-and-the-postal-service
-- 2018 --
Undated: Donald Trump’s proposed 2018
federal budget targets postal union benefits
https://www.nonprofitmailers.org/donald-trumps-proposed-2018-federal-budget-targets-postal-union-benefits/
March 28: It is not news that the United
States Postal Service has struggled in the digital era. One president after
another has tried to come up with a solution to the agency’s plight. But despite
these efforts, mail volume is down more than 25 percent over the past decade,
while costs continue to be
tough to prune.
https://www.rstreet.org/2018/03/28/trumps-postal-reform-plan-less-service-and-higher-prices/
March 30: How Amazon Is Helping the US
Postal Service, Despite What Trump Thinks
http://www.ttnews.com/articles/how-amazon-helping-us-postal-service-despite-what-trump-thinks
April 3: President Donald Trump blasted
Amazon again, but his latest tweet inaccurately described the U.S. Postal
Service as taxpayer-funded.
In a tweet sent Tuesday morning, Trump argued that the Post Office was giving
the online retail giant a sweetheart deal —
a claim he has made before that is also wrong — before adding that these
supposed costs are “bourne [sic] by the American Taxpayer.”
http://time.com/5226036/donald-trump-amazon-postal-service/
April 3: As Trump attacks Amazon-Postal
Service ties, he fails to fill postal governing board
https://www.mprnews.org/story/2018/04/03/npr-trump-amazong-post-office
April 12: Trump orders an evaluation of the
Postal Service following his criticism of Amazon
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/12/trump-issues-executive-order-to-reform-usps.html
April 13: The Postal Service on Friday said
it welcomed the task force and that changes to the legal requirements under
which it operates are needed: “As we have repeatedly stressed, these business
model problems are serious, but solvable, and the President’s executive order …
provides an opportunity to further consider these important public policy
issues.”
The new task force will be led by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin or his
designee, with help from the directors of the Office of Management and Budget
and Office of Personnel Management. The group will be required to issue a report
outlining proposed reforms within 120 days.
The USPS is a government agency, but it is run as an independent business,
meaning that your tax dollars don’t directly fund it. “The Postal Service
receives NO tax dollars for operating expenses and relies on the sale of
postage, products and services to fund its operations,” the
USPS website says. Postal rates are overseen by an independent commission.
http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/2018/04/13/Truth-About-Trump-s-War-Amazon-and-US-Postal-Service
April 16: President Trump’s executive order
for an analysis of the U.S. Postal Service’s financial situation may finally end
his tweets asserting that Amazon.com Inc. is underpaying for mail delivery.
The order, issued late Thursday, doesn’t mention Amazon
AMZN, +0.08% specifically.
However, Trump has taken to Twitter to criticize Amazon for using the U.S.
Postal Service as its
“Delivery boy.”
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/amazon-is-profitable-for-the-us-postal-service-says-former-postmaster-general-2018-04-05
April 18: Trump Moves to Gut the Post Office
His war on Amazon expands to include the right-wing’s campaign to abolish
America’s oldest—and still successful—public service.
http://prospect.org/article/trump-moves-gut-post-office
May 28: Trump reportedly asked the US Postal
Service to charge Amazon double
https://qz.com/1282324/trump-asked-the-us-postal-service-to-double-amazons-rates/
May 24: The nation's opioid epidemic has
been attributed to many factors, including the over-prescription of painkillers
and the availability of cheap synthetic opioids like fentanyl.
In Congress, lawmakers are trying to make it harder to buy fentanyl, in part by
forcing the U.S. Postal Service to make it more difficult to send narcotics
through the mail. But the measure has been languishing.
A Senate GOP aide who spoke to NPR blames the Postal Service for blocking the
measure in Congress by providing misinformation about the bill and suggesting
it's unworkable.
https://www.npr.org/2018/05/24/613762721/deadly-delivery-opioids-by-mail
June 22: Trump’s Fix for Postal Service:
Privatize It
White House says privatization would free agency to raise prices and deliver
mail fewer days a week; postal union objects
https://www.wsj.com/articles/trumps-fix-for-postal-service-privatize-it-1529659801
September
19: Dozens of Senators From Both Parties Push Measure to Block
Trump's USPS Privatization Plan
https://www.govexec.com/management/2018/09/dozens-senators-both-parties-push-measure-block-trumps-usps-privatization-plan/151396/
October 9:
Unionists, allies rally against Trump Postal Service privatization scheme
https://www.peoplesworld.org/article/unionists-allies-rally-against-trump-postal-service-privatization-scheme/
October
17: Trump administration moves to stop subsidizing Chinese mail
The Trump administration is moving to raise postage rates for foreign companies
that ship packages to the United States.
Some countries, including China, currently benefit from subsidized postal rates
set by the Universal Postal Union, a United Nations agency.
On Wednesday, US officials will initiate a withdrawal process from the UPU,
which was established in 1874 and has 192 member countries. The process to
withdraw will take at least a year, and the administration intends to negotiate
new rates with the group during that time.
Under the current rules, the UPU sets lower rates for developing countries. It
makes it possible to mail a package from Beijing to New York for less than it
costs to send it from San Francisco to New York, for example.
https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/17/business/postal-treaty-withdrawal/index.html
October 19:
Here’s why Trump threatened to
pull out of a 144-year-old postal treaty
This is Trump’s weirdest move in the China trade war.
President Donald Trump is taking another swipe at China — by ripping up an
international treaty that’s more than a century old.
The Trump administration announced Wednesday that the US will withdraw from the
Universal Postal Union (UPU), the organization that coordinates postal
policy around the world. At 144 years old, the UPU is one of the oldest
intergovernmental agencies. It makes the international postal system run
smoothly; it’s the reason why you can get a package from South Africa or a
postcard from your aunt on vacation in Bali.
Trump’s decision to pull out of
yet another
international body is mostly because of
China, which the administration says is getting a sweet deal on shipping
that’s undercutting American businesses.
“What [Trump] seems to be trying to do is raise the price of shipping costs for
small packages for a lot of things from China to the United States, and he wants
to have those decisions be made entirely under American law,”
The White House’s
solution is to adopt its own rates for letters and goods coming into the US,
and then get out of the UPU. But the formal withdrawal process from the
organization takes a year, and the White House left open the possibility that
the US would remain if it could negotiate a better deal.
Experts tell me this is probably the most likely scenario, as the US’s proposed
departure from the UPU is kind of weird and its consequences are a bit
unpredictable. Here’s what you need to know.
https://www.vox.com/2018/10/19/17996378/trump-china-universal-postal-union-treaty
October 25: Package Investigation Puts
Spotlight On Postal Service Screening
https://www.npr.org/2018/10/25/660676406/ongoing-investigation-into-suspicious-packages-highlights-how-usps-screens-mail
October 26: Trump Signs Law to Curb Postal
Service's Unintentional Role in Opioid Crisis
https://www.govexec.com/management/2018/10/trump-signs-law-curb-postal-services-unintentional-role-opioid-crisis/152351/
October 31: Withdrawal from the Universal
Postal Union: A Guide for the Perplexed
On October 17, 2018, President Trump
announced that the United States will withdraw from the
Universal Postal Union (UPU), an
intergovernmental organization that sets the rules and rates for international
mail delivery. The decision to withdraw has been
widely seen as
another salvo in the Trump administration’s campaign against what it deems
as unfair trade practices benefitting China. This post explains what the UPU is,
why the Trump administration is withdrawing from it, the legality of withdrawal,
how this decision is related to the trade war with China, and what could happen
next.
https://www.lawfareblog.com/withdrawal-universal-postal-union-guide-perplexed
November
16:
December
4: Treasury proposes postal changes after
Trump attacks on Amazon
President Donald Trump's task force scrutinizing U.S. Postal Service
operations is proposing an overhaul of the financially distressed agency,
including changes to how it prices packages shipped by retailers like Amazon, a
frequent target of the president's attacks.
In a report released on Tuesday, the Treasury-led task force says the Postal
Service should price packages "with profitability in mind" and impose higher
rates on general e-commerce goods and other non-essential items sent through the
mail.
The report's recommendations are broad and sweeping. They call for stronger
oversight by the Postal Service Board of Governors — which sat empty for much of
Trump's presidency. They also encourage the agency to consider other revenue
streams, such as renting out unused real estate to businesses, charging outside
shippers for access to people's mail boxes and issuing hunting and fishing
licenses.
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/12/04/us-postal-service-amazon-trump-1044592
December
12: Looking for ways to boost revenue for the U.S. Postal Service's
money-losing operations, the Trump administration is suggesting selling access
to mailboxes.
"The legal mailbox monopoly remains highly valuable," said a government
report issued last week. "As a means of generating more income, the mailbox
monopoly could be monetized."
While the report didn't detail how much the USPS could earn from franchising
mailboxes, it suggests the USPS could charge third-party delivery services such
as UPS or FedEx to gain access to consumer mailboxes. It's currently illegal for
other delivery services to drop packages or letters in a mailbox -- a
restriction that even applies to neighbors stuffing flyers for a local event.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/trumps-plan-to-revive-postal-service-sell-access-to-your-mailbox/ar-BBQODjE
-- 2019 --
January 28:
The U.S. Postal Service raised the price of stamps and other services prior to
this weekend.
The price of a first-class stamp is now 55 cents. The nickel increase is the
largest percentage hike since 1991 when postage increased from 25 to 29 cents.
The reason for the hike?
The Postal Service lost nearly $4 Billion in 2018 following less volume and
higher pension and health care costs.
https://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2019/01/28/u-s-post-office-hikes-prices-of-stamps-other-services/
-- 2020 --
Webpage visitor counts provided
by
copyr 2018 trump-news-history.com, Minneapolis, MN