Restructuring the U.S. Postal Service.
By The Cato Journal
- Release Date: 2011-01-01
- Genre: Politics & Current Events
Description
From 1775 when Benjamin Franklin was appointed as the first postmaster general of the United States, the agency known as the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) has grown to become an institution that delivers about half of the world's mail in rain, snow, and the dark of night. Employing about 656,000 workers and 260,000 vehicles and operating about 38,000 facilities nationwide, the USPS is the second-largest civilian employer in the United States, after Wal-Mart. If the USPS was a private sector company, it would rank 28th in the 2009 Fortune 500 (U.S. Postal Service 2010). The USPS is obligated to provide a uniform price and quality to all Americans, irrespective of geography. Although the USPS is often mistaken for a government-owned corporation such as Amtrack, it is an independent branch of the federal government; it is controlled by a board of governors and a postmaster general and it is regulated by the Postal Regulatory Commission. The USPS is structured to operate like a business, financing its operations through the sale of postal products and receiving no direct taxpayer subsidies.
