Prescription to heal the US Postal Service

As far as I can tell, Congress infected the USPS with a fatal disease when they agreed to allow delivery competition.  It's clear that FEDEX and UPS have siphoned off most of the high value service from the USPS.  There is no doubt that if the US had one, single, mail and package delivery system, it would be able to operate more efficiently at lower cost to all.  However that would require the USPS to have continually pushed to modernize it's system, streamline its distribution, and keep it's labor cost down.  It probably would have been possible for enlightened USPS  management to work with Government and labor to make those necessary investments.  However it appears that the only way to achieve those improvements was to allow competition.  UPS and FEDEX have shown how package delivery can be done and their examples have shown USPS that they can improve service also.  Those UPS and FEDEX examples have prodded USPS to make significant modernization.  However the USPS is still having trouble keeping it's head above water from a financial standpoint.  With the continued increase in internet as a replacement for normal mail functions, It appears to me that USPS is in a death spiral that needs to be stopped.

First of all, the US Government (Congress) needs to decide if USPS is a private corporation that needs to be able to operate freely and compete.  Or are they a Government service like National Parks, that is operated by the Government, but is allowed to collect use fees?  It looks like right now, USPS is a hybrid of the two concepts that is unable to compete, and is also restricted from full support of taxpayers.  If they were able to fully compete, they wouldn't have to get Government approval to close a post office, raise postage rates, or stop Saturday delivery.

What can be done?

1. Adjust rates to reflect the costs of the service provided. It's clear that delivery to a PO Box is a lot cheaper than delivering to a home.  But customers get "free" delivery to homes, but have to pay for a PO Box.  This is a "perverse" incentive that wastes everyone's money.  Yes, PO boxes shouldn't be "free" -- but home delivery  should be more expensive.  Solution:  Require customers to "subscribe" to mail delivery service with a weekly, monthly or annual fee -- similar to internet.   This will insure that only people who want to receive mail get it.  Everyone else will not get service.
2. For 30 years, all new housing developments have been required to install "cluster" boxes, which are much more efficient for carrier delivery.  However the homes built prior to the cluster box rule are all "grandfathered" and receive their mail door-to-door.  This is very unfair to people with cluster boxes, because they are, in effect, subsidizing those who get it door-to-door.  The USPS needs to establish standards and require all mail recipients to receive it at cluster boxes.  If required to deliver to a door, there should be an additional service charge -- like express mail, FEDEX or UPS would charge.
3. Charge for "special services" --Vacation held mail, mail forwarding and other similar services are all done for "free."  These are services that only some people benefit from and are subsidized by everyone else.  The USPS should charge to "hold" mail -- either by a daily fee, or a fee for the amount of mail held (per item, or per pound).  All forwarded mail should also be paid for by the recipient.  If I know the USPS will forward my mail for free, why should I exercise any discipline in notifying all of my correspondents of my new address?   That ends up creating much more work for the USPS delivery
4. Reduce mail delivery frequency.  I see nothing in the mail I receive on a daily basis that couldn't be delivered "tomorrow."  -- Anything that needs to be delivered urgently goes overnight mail, FEDEX, Express Mail, or UPS.  I believe mail could be reduced to only two or 3 days per week with no impact on commerce.  Yes, it might push a little more onto the internet or FEDEX -- but the trend is that anyway -- this would just accelerate that trend a little.  
5. USPS delivery needs to link in with the internet.  We should be able to pay for our deliver service on line.  We should be able to set up mail forwarding, vacation holds, and other similar services from online website. When large packages arrive at the PO, I should be notified to pick them up.  When I return from a trip, I should be able to request delivery of the held mail. 
6. The USPS customer data base is actually a national asset that the USPS owns and gets very little return on that investment.  I think they can easily make money from that database.  For example: We should also be able to select what junk mail  (in internet called "spam") we want to receive from the USPS.  Do we want Pennysaver every week? Do we want grocery store ads?  I know the bulk mail helps subsidize a lot of the service.  However it is a terrible waste to print all of that junk mail and deliver it only to go into the trash.  If the USPS knows that some residents want that delivered, those deliveries should be much more valuable to the senders.  Also, the USPS database of resident preferences will become very valuable, similar to Google &Yahoo's database on individual demographics.  That allows senders to tailor their advertising much better.  For example, if USPS knows that I want mail and advertising related to sailboats, they can sell that information to companies who want to market sailboat stuff to me.  This would be an extremely valuable database, and should be able to make money for USPS.
7. USPS should provide an address service to all publishers and subscribers that would handle addresses for them.  If publishers and subscribers use the service they would receive a discount on the mail service -- or, conversely if they don't use the service, they will pay a surcharge.  That service would keep a database of all publications that are delivered to an address.  Publishers would be delivered an updated address list on the date they need it to print mail labels on the publications (just in time delivery).  Subscribers could then go to one location (USPS) and execute an address change for mail publication forwarding.   USPS  could also operate a subscription service for publications and allow customers to subscribe.
8. A lot of mail I receive is unsolicited mail requesting donations for various charities or political  causes.  USPS could provide much better targeted mail lists to solicitors if they had more demographic data about each resident.  Yes, it starts appearing like "big brother" --but the USPS internet competition is already doing it.  The problem with USPS doing it is that it could appear that the Government is doing it.  That gets us back to the recommendation at the top of this post--is USPS a Government service?  Or a private business?  

I think that if the USPS would implement some or most of these recommendations, the Nation's mail service will remain strong and solvent.  A lot of "waste" will be removed from the process.