In case you missed it: President and CEO of the American Consumer Institute (ACI) Steve Pociask recently examined in the Federal Times that the recent price increases by the United States Postal Service could be in place for years to come, forcing consumers to continue to empty their wallets.
Pociask notes that because of the Postal Service’s monopoly on mail delivery, the agency’s leaders can “blatantly take advantage of consumers,” pointing to the Postal Service’s decision to consolidate facilities across the country, including 500 processing locations, 1,000 transfer hubs, and more.
Furthemore, Steve highlights the flaws of the Postal Service Reform Act, scrutinizing the integrated network provision. He notes “The term amounts to a mandate to deliver mail and packages together six days a week, but beyond that, the term is only loosely defined. To the USPS’ detriment, the integrated network fails to assert any semblance of rational accounting procedures to understand how each service is performing financially.”
Finally, his piece discusses how, with the help of Congressional lawmakers, the Postal Service was able to trim down millions of dollars in debt using taxpayer dollars. He concludes: “The next time Congress examines the Postal Service, let’s hope that they can undo the chaos they created with the Postal Service Reform Act of 2022. A commonsense approach to require USPS to organize its finances will be considerably better than asking consumers and taxpayers to make “uncomfortable” contributions again and again.”
You can read Steve’s full piece here.