6d ago

Privatize or downsize the USPS? Rural customers worry either option will hurt them

www.iowapublicradio.org

Rick Wallace, 77, voted for Trump and supports his cost-cutting agenda, to a point.

“There are government programs that I’d like to see discontinued or cut back, especially those that don’t affect me,” said the retired Scottsbluff firefighter. “But the ones like the Postal Service, yes, we count on them.”

32 comments

“There are government programs that I’d like to see discontinued or cut back, especially those that don’t affect me,”
And this right here is the problem, you geriatric piece of shit.
- Are you sure age is the problem ? I saw a lot of young faces at jan6, and lots of young faces in the gop. Maybe you're part of the problem too.
“There are government programs that I’d like to see discontinued or cut back, especially those that don’t affect me,” said the retired Scottsbluff firefighter. “But the ones like the Postal Service, yes, we count on them.”
What a piece of shit. I'm so tired of selfish idiots ruining everything.
- I've said it before, and I'll keep saying it: Conservatism is narcissism.
  You literally can't be conservative without having lower than average empathy. Because every single policy is intentionally designed to hurt someone.
Always "as long as it doesn't hurt ME", so sad and gross.
- I hope st peter reads that line back to him at the pearly gates before pulling the big lever
  
  I wish it was real for just that.
- Right? I'm totally cool with cutting basically every rural service that doesn't affect me. Maybe everyone else is tired of paying for all the extra roads, bridges, social services, and miscellaneous infrastructure funding from state and federal government it takes to subsidize their needs to live far away from the efficiency of the city? Lol
I'll probably be downvoted to hell for this, but I'm at the end of my rope. I live in a rural area with miles between houses in some instances. I can't wait for it to start affecting my neighbors. They're all MAGA cunts with only hate in their hearts. I love this for them!
My dad is a republican and also a usps worker. Idiot thinks he's safe. If it's a govt program that offers some miniscule benefit to the public then republicans will gut it because of how much it "saves".
I have a rural address.
USPS already is broken for my community. They won’t delivery at all off the paved highway. We have a line of mailboxes.
The issue is that the mailboxes are constantly broken into, so we all also have a PO Box. P.O. Boxes are not cheap.
My mailbox no longer exists to prevent packages from accidentally getting delivered to it.
If usps doesn’t want to deliver to rural addresses, fine, but set up some alternatives. Create a secured remote mailbox, or offer P.O. Boxes for free.
- If usps doesn’t want to deliver to rural addresses, fine, but set up some alternatives. Create a secured remote mailbox, or offer P.O. Boxes for free.
  The fundamental problem here is that the US population doesn't really want to pay for stuff where they don't directly benefit. In "me first" politics, rural populations are screwed.
  
  And may they have the day they voted for.
  
  Exactly. Nothing is free, and having free po boxes just means the public will pay. And since you can't pay for things you don't directly benefit from in the current zeitgeist, it's not happening.
- This is true everywhere, not just rural areas. In suburbs we have “community mailboxes” and they are constantly broken into. Law enforcement takes a report, and that’s it. For something that’s a federal crime with its its own enforcement arm, mail theft sure isn’t taken seriously anymore.
  
  I think the postal inspectors have their hands full at the moment. In my neck of the woods people are robbing mail carriers for their mailbox keys. It's not a great time to work for the USPS, it used to be though
- Where I grew up they had these outdoor lock boxes where everyone had a slot with their own key and then there were a couple larger spots where they could put packages and then put that key in your mail slot. Postal worker just opens the whole front face and loads the mail for like 50 people. They put them at the beggining of the road out so people could stop and check their mail on their way in/out. Seems like a great solution for rural areas.
  
  We have the same thing in urban and suburban areas, like apartments, condos, subdivisions. People end up stealing the master keys from the postal carriers. It’s fucked up.
  
  That's exactly what we have in the neighborhood where my camp is. I don't have one because I don't have an address. :(
- Shit it sucks in the city. Just spoke to someone that owes me a check. The company said it went out n the mail Tuesday. This is local the place six blocks away (wish they had let me pick it up) should had it next day.
They are a self-sustaining department of the government. Before unnecessary rules were placed on them regarding how they generated money, they used to actually make a surplus of revenue all while providing service to every home and commercial property in the country. Downsizing or privatizing them does nothing to save the government money. It only serves delivery services like UPS, FedEx, etc, to boost their revenue.
As someone urban we could instead cut the usps to save money for research grants.
Does that sound callous, selfish, and like it would hinder the nation? Yeah, but apparently we've decided to cut what doesn't prioritize ourselves
Aww, but they’re the real America.
FFs are some of the biggest dumbasses I know. Brainless dopeys.
They have good reason to be concerned.
A couple days ago I went to my neighborhood USPS. When I asked for packing peanuts the person said "I don't know what that is so probably not". Then pointed me to their packing supplies shelf which had a couple rolls of tape and some bubble wrap. I live in Seattle and it's already this bad. Any more budget cuts and it would be easier for me to backpack cross country deliver it myself
Edit: I don't understand why I'm being down voted? I've always tried to use USPS I prefer them over privatized shipping. I'm just trying to say that it's already depressingly under funded and it's hurting this much in the city I can't imagine how much it's hurting people in the country. It's about to buckle already and it's going to be toast if it sees another budget cut. I wish we could have nice things

32 comments