If the USPS was to be phased out entirely who would deliver the mail?

It depresses me to think the USPS could disappear. I guess Fedex and UPS would take it over.

USPS cannot completely disappear, it may have to be rebuilt from the ground up. It is constitutionally required that there be postal service and postal roads maintained by the government.

@WestRiverrat Can you please direct me to some type of link where I can view this law in the constitution?

It is Article I section 8, clause 7. I am looking in my pocket constitution, so I don’t have a link handy.

Article I, Section 8, Clause 7

Section. 8.
Clause 1: The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

Clause 2: To borrow Money on the credit of the United States;

Clause 3: To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;

Clause 4: To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States;

Clause 5: To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;

Clause 6: To provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the Securities and current Coin of the United States;

Clause 7: To establish Post Offices and post Roads;

http://www.house.gov/house/Constitution/Constitution.html

I heard someone argue against your point, @WestRiverrat, by saying, “Nothing in the Constitution requires Congress to ‘establish post offices and post roads,’ just because the Constitution authorizes Congress the power to do so. Just as the power of Congress to ‘grant letters of marque and reprisal’ has been rendered obsolete by international law, so too, the post office power may become a relic.”

Despite not operating efficiently, I am always amazed by the simple process of addressing a letter and having it delivered to another town, another state, another country. I would give up my Saturday delivery without any argument if it meant assisting the old girl staying up and running.

I agree with @bkcunningham, I would give up Saturday delivery, and even pay a little more for letters to travel the great distances they do. Our postal system is amazing, with such a wonderful history.

Does anyone know what subsidy Congress gives the USPS?

None. The USPS is not subsidized. It relies on postage to maintain itself.

That is right and the postage doesn’t maintain the operations. Did you know that a federal mandate, 2010 US Code, Title 39 Postal Service, Part I —GENERAL (§§ 101—606)
CHAPTER 1 —POSTAL POLICY AND DEFINITIONS (§§ 101—102) § 101. Postal policy, requires the USPS to keep post offices open that are running at a deficit? How is that fair? No subsidy and yet statutes that prevent it from operating.

Actually, operationally speaking, the United States Postal Service nets profits every year. Bulk rate mail actually sustains the system. The real problem is that congress requires the USPS to pre-fund retiree health benefits for 75 years. That means we (I’ve been a carrier now for 26½ years) have to put money aside to pay for retirees who have not even been born yet. This is something no other agency has to do and it’s completely unfair. Going back to the 2006 mandate, if the postal service wouldn’t have had to make these annual $5.5 billion payments then the USPS would have actually made a profit of about $400 million just this last fiscal year. Fact is we are in the middle of labor negotiations currently and Postmaster Donahoe, along with two neo-con congressmen, Darrell Issa, R-California, and Dennis Ross, R-Florida, are making it sound like the sky is falling.
The bottom line is that the USPS is a government agency that exists as a service to the public. Post offices that run at a deficit are still important to the people it serves. It’s hardly fair that someone from a rural area should travel dozens of miles to get to the closest post office while an urbanite never has to go more that ten miles to visit theirs, just because the city office makes a profit while the rural office doesn’t. We need to stop thinking of the USPS as a business and start thinking of it as a civil service. Do you expect your fire district, police, or sanitation departments to make a profit? Of course not.