The future of the U.S. Postal Service

US Postal Service carrier
US Postal Service letter carrier Juan Padilla arranges mail in his truck while on his delivery route on December 5, 2011 in San Francisco, California.
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

The U.S. Postal Service has been on a slow decline, running deficits in the billions of dollars every fiscal year with 650,000 employees. But Americans are hesitant to do away with the Postal Service, and even suggestions to cut back service have caused uproar. What is the future of the post office in America, and what can -- or should -- be done to save it?

Ian Lee, assistant professor of strategic management at Carleton University, will join The Daily Circuit Thursday to talk about options for the Postal Service moving forward.

"Old people say they're dependent on the post office, but it's fading by the day," he said. "There are very few people not using the internet, that will only last 10 more years and then the post office will cease to exist as we know it."

George Mason University public policy professor A. Lee Fritschler will also join the discussion.

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"I'm a great supporter of the Postal Service; they've done a good job of becoming more efficient within Congress' limits but they need to go much further," he said. "They need to close many, many more offices; they need to have other ways to compete."

Fritschler and Lee both had doubts that a company like FedEx could take over the kind of services the Postal Service provides.

"FedEx puts at least one million packages into the postal service for delivery," Fritschler said. "This is where the postal service gets a lot of money; they can do it much more efficiently than FedEx can because they have the network and the people."

FedEx's model is different than the Postal Service because they don't have to deliver everywhere, Lee said.

"The U.S. Postal Service has mandated obligations to go places, but FedEx can say we just don't go there or we'll charge extra for that," he said.

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