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Post Office not government funded

Posted 9/29/20

To the Editor:

Contrary to popular belief, the Post Office is not government-funded. Like any non-profit, it must have enough income to cover expenses. The Post Office charges us for postage and …

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Post Office not government funded

Posted

To the Editor:

Contrary to popular belief, the Post Office is not government-funded. Like any non-profit, it must have enough income to cover expenses. The Post Office charges us for postage and other goods and services to meet expenses, including retirement pension fund. Obviously, the PO. has to have good benefits to get good workers. But they were required to fund the pension for the next 75 years, which is multi- billions more than is normally required of pension funds. Their retirement pension fund thus became a money pit.

Now they have two options. On the one hand they can raise prices. But as we know, this does not always increase income. It could, for example, dry up the demand for advertising by mail once that is no longer cost-effective.

The alternative is to cut services. They can just shut down in rural areas where a handful of elderly depend on the PO. for all their official business, even banking, not to mention voting in this Pandemic election year. But there is never much business in the rural areas, so the PO. runs a deficit and tries to make it up in the more densely populated areas. But there, UPS gives them stiff competition.

We know that our current duly appointed Postmaster General is heavily invested in the competition. If that doesn’t cause a serious conflict of interest, it can only be because he has no interest at all in the poor and elderly of Armstrong or Franklin.

Taffy Wallace 

Fayette Missouri

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