Thread by @RealSpikeCohen

The Post Office, which employs more than 600,000 employees, has had over $1 billion in losses over the last decade. Postal workers unionize and operate as if they are a private organization, but they are far from it.

With mail volume plunging, package volume is on the rise, which has brought competition from companies like Amazon, FedEx, and UPS. However, the competition is manipulated through the monopoly that the postal service has on letters and mailboxes.

USPS also enjoys a range of other benefits giving them an unfair advantage and a further hindrance to healthy competition. 
They have access to 15 billion dollar loans at low-interest rates from the US Treasury, unlike their private counterparts.

They are exempt from state and local income, sales, and property taxes.
They pay federal corporate income taxes but that just gets circulated back to them.
They can circumvent local zoning laws and are immune to eminent domain.

They can also regulate the mail and delivery industry because of their government status.

Yet, they operate at a loss, thanks to economically illiterate requirements imposed by federal law, such as the requirement to pre-fund health benefit obligations 50 years into the future.

This has forced the Post Office to undergo multiple series of layoffs and benefit cuts.

Unsurprisingly, everyone is losing under this government-created arrangement.

By simply privatizing the Post Office, and allowing other companies to compete in the letter mail space, postal workers and consumers alike would benefit from less regulation and more competition: lower prices, better service, and better benefits for workers.