
US post office carriers "forced to work fewer hours," leaving "buckets of mail" - cs702
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/aug/16/usps-mail-delays-postmaster-general-changes-workers
======
carnivor
Shame that this got flagged.

From the site Guidelines: "Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime,
or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon..."

I'd say that rampant voter suppression in the United States is a an
interesting new phenomenon.

~~~
9HZZRfNlpR
No doubt your president wants to limit it, but you have to understand most of
the people in the west would see postal voting without proper documentation
and system that is verifiable is insanity and borderline corruption.

~~~
jorblumesea
For some historical context, IDs cost money in most states and there's no
national identification system. So if you implement voting ids, all it does is
end up being voter suppression because generally the poor cannot afford to get
a driver's license or cannot afford to drive therefore don't have a license.
State Ids have a similar issue.

Historically, voter ID laws have been associated with disenfranchisement.

~~~
9HZZRfNlpR
You could make a sane argument in EU countries since getting documents and
keeping them updated in every 8 years costs money here as well but no one
would take that argument seriously here.

~~~
jorblumesea
Yeah but the EU or EU countries will just eat the costs for the populace. In
the US, this is a contentious issue (as is every social program for the poor
tbh).

~~~
9HZZRfNlpR
Depends what you mean, usually there's a small 20-30 euro tax for documents.

------
jorblumesea
It's interesting to see that in America, some government services can run at a
loss but others are expected to be solvent. No one complains that the military
doesn't pay back the 700 billion a year it takes but if public transportation
goes over budget or the post office, suddenly it's a big deal.

I honestly don't get it. Most services in most countries run at a loss but
they provide huge public benefits so it's worth it. The USPS allows people to
vote, seniors to get their medication, people to pay mortgages or send
packages.

It seems so non-political and yet somehow even the most basic of services
provided by the government are now a battleground.

I feel like this country has just collectively lost its mind.

~~~
Lendal
Even if there was some sort of budgetary problem, it seems logical that
services that are explicitly required by the Constitution, such as mail and
census, would have precedence over those that are not.

~~~
zamadatix
Article 1 Section 8 gives congress the power to collect money to provide
postal service it does not require that they do so. This is opposed to Article
1 Section 2 which states a census shall be done and how often.

This isn't to say I'm against the USPS or anything of that matter just that
lately I've seen "postal services are mentioned in the constitution" turned
into "postal services are required by the constitution".

------
cs702
I posted this article.

 _To dang and the other moderators_ : I hesitated quite a bit before posting
this, due to its possible interpretation as a "political post"... but after
some thought decided to go ahead and post it, because I find it both important
and interesting, in the sense described in the HN guidelines, so I felt it was
on-topic. But if you judge the OP is off-topic or should be flagged to avoid
unproductive commentary, please leave it flagged; I know it's a matter of
judgment and I trust yours :-)

------
Scoundreller
> DeJoy instructed USPS employees to leave mail behind if it delayed carriers
> from their routes

I mean, this does make sense. The more time you can spend doing the route
itself, instead of waiting or coming back mid-way for whatever couldn’t be
sorted in time in the morning is more “lean” efficient.

While some mail would take an extra day, it results in more mail delivered per
carrier-hour.

~~~
kube-system
But should the USPS operate that way? The purpose of a government-operated
mail service arguably is to guarantee the quality and types of services that
free-market competitors can’t or don’t want to offer.

~~~
adsjhdashkj
The irony of so many anti-service people is that most of them turn around and
hate big corporations just as much. It's like they envision a Comcast-esque
corporation taking over USPS, but forget that they hate Comcast.

Disliking corporations and anti-competitive behavior of big corporations seems
to be a non-partisan issue; and yet there seems to be much support for making
everything ran by massive corporations. I don't understand their line of
thinking here.

~~~
kube-system
I'm not sure if they're the same people or not -- but I don't think it really
matters. There are pros-and-cons to any system of organization. Whether you
have chosen the right one depends on the goals of the organization.

Be wary of anyone who fanboys too hard for anything in particular without
discussing its merits and weaknesses versus the alternatives. They likely
don't have a full understanding of either.

------
sparrish
"prohibited employees from working overtime" Cause they can't pay them
overtime rates.

------
stingraycharles
Genuine question: seems like this is mostly a political post without much
relation to the typical content one would expect on HN. Is there some kind of
“off-topic” policy at HN for these things, or is it fair game given that
enough people upvote it?

Edit: article seems to be flagged now, guess I have my answer.

~~~
avmich
If I remember correctly, HN is supposed to have information interesting and
useful for thinking people. This example doesn't qualify as off-topic then.

~~~
stingraycharles
Apparently the guidelines even explicitly say:

“Off-Topic: Most stories about politics”

I would certainly classify this as such.

~~~
avmich
Good exception. I think you're right... benefits of discussing can be
outweighed by how easy it is to drop into a bad quarrel.

------
BrandonM
The article says:

 _> Trump said on 13 August that he opposes providing additional funding to
the USPS to make it more difficult to deliver mail-in ballots._

That comment links to another article, where the first paragraph states:

 _> Donald Trump admitted on Thursday he opposed additional funding for the
United States Postal Service (USPS) in order to make it more difficult to
deliver mail-in ballots._

I searched Google and YouTube but can't find the original source, only
commentary on it. Does anyone have a link?

 _Edit:_ Maybe it's referring to
[https://youtu.be/0ieLG29X_oE?t=840](https://youtu.be/0ieLG29X_oE?t=840). I
don't know much about the facts here, but Trump seems to be asserting that
Congress is bundling $15–25B in USPS funding in a mega-bill that includes
trillions of dollars of bailout money for states, and thus the bill has
stalled. He also keeps harping on the failures of mail-in voting (but says
absentee works well). I don't know what to make of it, but it's certainly
frustrating that multiple news orgs are claiming that Trump is intentionally
hamstringing the USPS to harm democracy, when I don't take away any such
conclusion from that shitshow of an interview.

~~~
vzqx
The source is this Fox News interview:

[https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-seeks-to-starve-
post-...](https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-seeks-to-starve-post-office-
to-limit-mail-in-voting)

No timestamp because I couldn't bring myself to listen to all 40 minutes.

~~~
BrandonM
Thank you. Yeah, these interviews are painful to listen to. Trump said:

 _> [Democrat representatives] want $3½ billion for the mail-in votes,
universal mail-in ballots. They want $25 billion for the post office. They
need that money in order to have the post office work so that it can take
these millions and millions of ballots. Now those are just two items [in the
bill]; if they don't get there, they can't have mail-in ballots. [A bunch of
rambling about failures of mail-in ballots in VA, NJ, etc.]_

He seemed to me to be saying that if the Democrats want mail-in ballots,
they're going to have to find a way to get this bill passed that would give
more funding to the post office. Trump emphasized repeatedly that they're
asking for $3.5 billion dollars ("that's a lot of money") for the mail-in
ballots.

------
curiousgal
> _Trump himself has admitted to wanting to starve the postal service of funds
> so that mail-in voting will become difficult, as tens of millions of
> Americans are expected to vote by mail during the coronavirus pandemic._

This is why I can't help but admire Trump, the fact he remains untouched
proves how cunning him and his team are. Either that or how fragile the checks
and balances system truly is.

~~~
prions
How is anything about his hamfisted (publicly admitted) attempt to
disenfranchise voters even close to cunning?

Maybe it’s because his party and half of America is also on board with it?

~~~
asabjorn
If someone can stand in line for the cashier at Home Depot and Whole Foods,
they can also do so at the voting booth.

Mail-in voting has no tracking of the voter receiving the ballot and if a
filled out ballot is counted. It also has no verification of who votes and no
protection to make the vote anonymous.

~~~
psadauskas
Yeah, none of that is true. There was a recent article about how it works in
Colorado: [https://www.denverpost.com/2020/08/16/colorado-denver-
mail-v...](https://www.denverpost.com/2020/08/16/colorado-denver-mail-voting-
usps-2020-election/)

~~~
asabjorn
I am talking about the "last-mile" problem of securing that the mail carrier
getting the ballot into the voters hands and securing that the ballot gets
from the mail box to the counting location.

At a physical voting location you know 100% a person gets a ballot and you
track the ballot from it's put into the voting box.

As far as I can tell this process deals with neither of these problems.

------
aty268
USPS has been bound to fail for years. Isn't HN all about efficiency? What's
so great about wasting money on a company that can't compete in the private
markets and refuses to innovate?

Give it to the markets, but give them tax breaks or loans for offering
services USPS offered. (Shipping to far away areas for a low cost, for
example)

It's incredibly that some people still think we should have this cash burning
& horrible service business alive.

~~~
carnivor
Copy/pasting jorblumesea's comment above that I think answers your questions.

"It's interesting to see that in America, some government services can run at
a loss but others are expected to be solvent. No one complains that the
military doesn't pay back the 700 billion a year it takes but if public
transportation goes over budget or the post office, suddenly it's a big deal.

I honestly don't get it. Most services in most countries run at a loss but
they provide huge public benefits so it's worth it. The USPS allows people to
vote, seniors to get their medication, people to pay mortgages or send
packages.

It seems so non-political and yet somehow even the most basic of services
provided by the government are now a battleground.

I feel like this country has just collectively lost its mind."

~~~
aty268
Would you want a socialized fast food chain, or computer company? Probably
not, and do you know why? It's because these are services clearly designed for
the market to solve. I hope we can agree there. Delivery is just something
that's FAR more efficient in the markets.

And the difference in inefficiency is just going to grow. Look at what UPS has
been doing the past x years. They constantly reinvest money into new tech and
decreasing labor, and USPS just gets more money from the government.

It's a fair question to ask "at what difference in cost should we stop giving
USPS money because we're wasting so much of it". I think we've reached that
difference already.

You know what happens when you raise a child with an unlimited allowance and
no incentive to work?

America will stay ahead because of our belief in the private markets.
Socialization of services can do good in the short term, but almost always
looses out to competition in the long term.

~~~
belltaco
The USPS has mandates from the federal government like having to deliver mail
to far flung unprofitable areas and to deliver mail on Saturdays. Lets see UPS
get saddled with these requirements and then "look at what UPS has been doing
the past x years".

There was a time when taxpayers were taking money out of USPS, maybe it should
be returned to USPS with interest?

~~~
apta
> maybe it should be returned to USPS with interest?

Interest is an evil and harmful practice. We've known it for thousands of
years.

