For some time it has seemed the fashion to claim the United States Post Office is a bad example of government services, that it is run by the greedy mail carriers' union, and that it should pay its own way.
From my experience, the United States Post Office has been run effectively, provided friendly and courteous service, and provided an essential public good.
I have often found that mail deposited one day is often delivered the next day within the state and often delivered within three days within the lower 48. It almost always arrives in the same condition as it was deposited.
A case in point is the delivery of DVDs from Netflix. I put a DVD in a box on Sunday, next scheduled pickup was 12:30 on Monday, at 2:00 a.m. on Tuesday Netflix sent me email that it had received my DVD, and on Wednesday around 10:00 a.m. I had my next selection.
Granted the return address for Netflix is Duluth. But what would happen if the processing center was closed in Duluth and all local mail had to first make a 300-mile round-trip to the Twin Cities?
If the Post Office is so inefficient, why does UPS use USPS for the last-mile delivery of small packages? Several times I've gotten small orders delivered by our mail carrier, but the shipper had originally given the order to UPS. This hand-off happens because it is inefficient for UPS to deliver such small packages door-to-door.
Some have complained about surly counter service at the Post Office. My general experience is that counter personnel treat every customer as the only customer. They give alternative shipping costs and conditions and always ask "Anything else?"
The Postal Service seems to be the only government agency that Congress expects to pay its own way. Is Congress going to insist that every Interstate highway be a toll road? Is Congress going to insist that every homeowner whose house has been saved by U.S. Forest Service firefighters pay a fee?
The U.S. Constitution states: "Congress shall have the power … to establish Post Offices and post Roads." The Constitution mentions nothing about how post offices and post roads should be paid for. In fact, in recognition that newspapers were important for an informed populace, an early Congress determined that newspapers should be sent at a lower rate than letters.
The benefits and the costs of the Postal Service should not be examined as a direct cost/benefit problem but as a system cost/benefit problem. It is not a question if the revenue of the Postal Services is meeting its costs, but it is a question of what benefits would not be realized if postal service were cut back. For example, if all Duluth mail had to go to the Twin Cities to be processed, would the Netflix office in Duluth close, putting some local people out of work?
