Universal mail delivery isn't just about helping the poor and needy. It's also about allowing the government to deliver services efficiently.
The government has an obligation to send every citizen voter registration cards, census forms, driving licenses, tax forms, firearms registration forms, passports and so on.
The alternatives - an IRS office in every backwater town, denying a vote to people living in remote areas, ATF agents delivering gun permits in person, denying driving licenses to people without a home internet connection - would either be more expensive, or less constitutional.
Unless UPS or FedEx wanted to take on a universal service obligation, of course...
>The alternatives - an IRS office in every backwater town, denying a vote to people living in remote areas, ATF agents delivering gun permits in person, denying driving licenses to people without a home internet connection - would either be more expensive, or less constitutional.
That's not the alternative. The alternative is that they pay a private delivery company to deliver it and/or the recipient will have to come to town to pick it up.
The German government manages to send those forms out just fine, despite them privatising Deutsche Post and eventually abolishing their letter monopoly.
Deutsche Post has flat-rate pricing within Germany - unlike your proposal that mail to and from remote locations should cost more. So I'm not sure how that example supports your argument?
What they decide is to not service large areas of the country. This also happens with internet service. Without government enforced rate setting and subsidies, rural areas would have very expensive roads, water, electricity, and phone service - even unaffordable.
Deutsche Post / DHL service quality has absolutely declined as a result of this and keeps getting worse so I don't know what argument you are trying to make.
You could procure the government postal service to a private contractor at the start of each presidential election, for the entirety of that presidential term /s
The government has an obligation to send every citizen voter registration cards, census forms, driving licenses, tax forms, firearms registration forms, passports and so on.
The alternatives - an IRS office in every backwater town, denying a vote to people living in remote areas, ATF agents delivering gun permits in person, denying driving licenses to people without a home internet connection - would either be more expensive, or less constitutional.
Unless UPS or FedEx wanted to take on a universal service obligation, of course...