tangent4ronpaul
06-06-2011, 04:46 AM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/federal-government-still-depends-heavily-on-snail-mail/2011/06/05/AGIA8hJH_story.html
The federal government delivers Social Security checks and processes tax returns electronically, but its use of the old-fashioned mail systems is soaring nonetheless, according to a new study.
Declining mail volume caused a plunge in the U.S. Postal Service’s total revenue in recent years, but the federal government’s use of first-class mail jumped 11 percent from 1997 to 2010, according to research by two top officials with the Postal Regulatory Commission, which oversees the Postal Service.
In fact, the federal government was the largest single user of the mail system, accounting for more than 2 percent of the money spent on first-class mail last year, the authors said. States spend about the same each year.
Government agencies spent at least $1 billion a year on mailing and shipping over roughly the same period, plus another $200 million to $250 million on packages sent through private companies such as FedEx and UPS
[...]
“One vital function of the United States Postal Service is to form an essential communications backbone of the government . . . ensuring reliable and timely delivery of communications essential to the functions of government,”
[...]
Permits, benefits, voting materials, warning letters, surveys, military correspondence, employment and tax information, immigration documents, product recalls, security clearances, retirement information, regulatory compliance — all of this communication between government and its citizens is done the old-fashioned way, through snail mail or contracts with UPS and FedEx Express.
Part of the reason is that the government needs to make sure its missives are delivered to real people with real addresses, and electronic communication poses a risk that that may not happen
[...]
Sounds like the states coercive powers are intimately tied to being able to threaten and force compliance from it's subjects - and that requires communications. voting materials and military correspondence were the only 2 items on that list I found constitutional and desirable. How about you?
The federal government delivers Social Security checks and processes tax returns electronically, but its use of the old-fashioned mail systems is soaring nonetheless, according to a new study.
Declining mail volume caused a plunge in the U.S. Postal Service’s total revenue in recent years, but the federal government’s use of first-class mail jumped 11 percent from 1997 to 2010, according to research by two top officials with the Postal Regulatory Commission, which oversees the Postal Service.
In fact, the federal government was the largest single user of the mail system, accounting for more than 2 percent of the money spent on first-class mail last year, the authors said. States spend about the same each year.
Government agencies spent at least $1 billion a year on mailing and shipping over roughly the same period, plus another $200 million to $250 million on packages sent through private companies such as FedEx and UPS
[...]
“One vital function of the United States Postal Service is to form an essential communications backbone of the government . . . ensuring reliable and timely delivery of communications essential to the functions of government,”
[...]
Permits, benefits, voting materials, warning letters, surveys, military correspondence, employment and tax information, immigration documents, product recalls, security clearances, retirement information, regulatory compliance — all of this communication between government and its citizens is done the old-fashioned way, through snail mail or contracts with UPS and FedEx Express.
Part of the reason is that the government needs to make sure its missives are delivered to real people with real addresses, and electronic communication poses a risk that that may not happen
[...]
Sounds like the states coercive powers are intimately tied to being able to threaten and force compliance from it's subjects - and that requires communications. voting materials and military correspondence were the only 2 items on that list I found constitutional and desirable. How about you?