The Democratic presidential candidate thinks postal banking is a "great idea" for reinvigorating the service
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While on the campaign trail, Bernie Sanders has touted a number of ways the United States can expand universal services, including for the U.S. Postal Service, which is suffering from budgetary challenges. In an interview with Fusion published Tuesday, the Vermont senator said he would turn U.S. post offices into banks. The Democratic presidential candidate told…
The Postal Inspectors are doing an excellent job of finding and prosecuting criminals. In fact, there has been much success and quite a history in nabbing people doing other serious crimes using the USPS rules and jurisdiction. The GOP would love to do away with that obstacle. They would also welcome the privatization of the mail for use in massive voter fraud. Can you imagine if private individuals and companies were handling your mail? There would be nothing stopping them from discarding or altering your votes, their opponents campaign literature, and any of our other mail. It is a federal offense to do so now. That is why we have the most secure mail in the world (including how our Registered – but not the Certified - mail being transported under lock-and-key).
And, unless it is a USPS official site, that convenient place that takes your letters and has mailboxes for you is simply another mail customer, like yourself. There is not the security, nor the delivery schedule, of the real Post Office. Believe me, I know. I used to deliver mail to a Mail Boxes, Etc. business. The owner went on a bender and his place was closed for about 2 weeks. No one else had a key to get in. The people who had mail there (in their boxes and that which they deposited to be picked up by the real mailperson for real delivery) were out of luck. They had to wait quite a while for the police and/or court authorities to finally get in and try to straighten things out. It was a sad mess. If it weren’t for the Postal Inspectors, it would have taken longer. Our Post Office extended help to the individuals in the interim, as well, by setting up temporary postal boxes for them in our office, and the clerks to accommodate them and their needs.
By the way, I also feel strongly that the P.O. should not be closed on Saturdays. That would leave 3 days-in-a-row of no postal service whenever there is a Monday holiday, of which there are many. Better would be a Thursday break. It makes more sense, as there would be a two-day cushion on either end of that day, so as not to make interruption so drastic. The other way would be a nightmare for people trying to meet billing deadlines. It would also save more money for the USPS, as the offices are already closed for a half-day now on Saturdays. It would give them a whole day of closing, and more money saved, if they closed on Thursdays, along with the no delivery.
Our postal system offers banking services and they work just fine. Postal outlets are also a kind of franchise. Convenience stores offer postal services and accept delivery of packages held while notices are delivered to mail boxes of the recipient.
The GOP wants to kill the USPS to end the risk of mail fraud that American business faces when using the postal service. USPS and Fedex allow Bernie Madoff fraud unabated and exempt from federal felonious prosecution. However, USPS does deliver Fedex and USPS packages to certain rural areas out of range of their dispatch centers. The Postal Inspector General could inspect Fedex and USPS deliveries IF some of their routing was in USPS hands. Paying 20 dollars for a delivery that costs 45 cents sounds wasteful, but getting exemption from mail fraud is worth the 19 bucks, and American businesses love fraud. Enron was a preferred customer of Fedex.