But Article I, Section 8, Clause 7 is rather clear on the matter. It gives Congress the power to create, but not destroy. I defy any alternative (meaning private) service to fund future retirement funds for 75 years in advance in a 10 year window and be able to deliver an envelope from Maine to Hawaii in a few days for 46 cents. They can't do it. The retirement fund crap is the only reason the USPS isn't running a surplus.
Priority mail is cheaper than ground rates for FedEx and UPS. Neither of them (or any other competitor) provides letter service to begin with. You need to send a standard business envelope in an 8 1/2x11 envelope with a zip strip for a few dollars. And that's not even going to arrive in the time the USPS 46 cents envelope will.
Congress is in bed with the non-USPS services and has done a good job at chipping away at the USPS, but it's still the best thing we have. I don't even bother with the alternative carriers anymore. They're just sucking money out of USPS haters. FedEx and UPS might have some cute commercials, but when we have really nasty weather, the USPS truck comes around and I've gotten shipping delay notices from both FedEx and UPS because of "severe weather conditions".
One thing that concerns me is that the USPS delivery buggies (Star Trek shuttles) are based on the Chevy S-10 and most have about 200K on them. The fleet needs to be updated and there's no money available to do that.
Oh, but we can count on Congress to deal with that problem (massive sarcasm intended).
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