updates from governors and state fromials, track the spread the u.s. and -- in the u.s. and around the world. watch any time, unfiltered, at coronavirus. ,> we are back with kevin koser vice president at the r street institute. good morning. >> good morning. host: first, tell us what you are and what you do. guest: we are a think tank in washington dc, and we study a wide range of issues that try to bring practical solutions to the issue -- to the table. we cover telecom, tobacco farm reduction, security, and the postal service.

host: we will talk about the united states postal service. what do we know, right now, about the health and financial impacts that coronavirus has had on the united states postal service staff and revenue. -- revenue? guest: we do not know nearly enough. we have a very clear picture of the postal service before coronavirus, and it was an agency struggling because mail volume has dropped 30%, and the agency has difficulty maintaining operating costs, but then coronavirus hit, and mail volume plunged as much as 30% already, because most of what

gets sent is sent by businesses, and so much of america, so many of them are closed down. host: so, has the postal service ever been in a situation like they are in now? have we ever seen this? is this business as normal or have they always been in trouble like this? guest: 10 years ago the situation changed for the postal service. fundamentally, because the mail volume stopped growing. you look at the data on mail volume over the course of the last 120 years, and it was an upward course. you only have recessions where mail volume drops and then it bounces back up because mail was the medium for communication and for doing business. the 2008 recession broke that growth, and mail volume has not come back. but, the postal service still has a very large workforce of half a million workers and a very large remit, namely it has to deliver six days a week to every address.

that is not cheap. host: looking at the post office's website, it says that the post office is the only delivery service that reaches every address in the nation. 155 million residences, businesses, and post office boxes. with all of that known, is the post office too big to fail. -- fail? guest: that is what i have argued, it is too big to fail. we are all dependent upon it. we as individuals, businesses are dependent upon it, even the companies that look like they are competitors to the postal service, the private shipping companies, even they depend upon it. fedex, for example, has a contract with the postal service to fly the postal service's mail because the postal service does not have airplanes. other shipping companies make deals with the postal service

where the shipping companies move product a certain distance but then they will hand it off to the postal service to deliver it last mile. the post office is an essential service. i'm thinking in my own experience, the past week or so, i have gotten a postcard from the cdc with tips on it informing me how to avoid coronavirus. i had my minivan registration so i could drive my vehicle legally, all the magazines that i subscribe to, a bill from the local tax authority reminding me that i do not have to pay income taxes until july 15. all of this stuff comes through the mail, and without postal service, we would not get it. we should be thankful to the postal workers out there who are risking their health on the front lines six or seven days per week. host: the post office is an entity that is talked about in the u.s. constitution.

is the post office required to exist because of the u.s. constitution? guest: the constitution says congress has the authority to create post roads and post offices. there is a lot of variety that can be chosen from. the postal operations have always been a mixture of public sector and private sector. in th, they did not build a lot of post offices. they located post offices inside of taverns and general stores. there have always been private companies that have helped move the mail. it has been a complicated relationship. folks are wondering whether or not there is some sort of private sector, capitalist or company that wants to take over the postal service and do what

the postal service does, i have been in this term 17 years and i have not seen anything like that. postal service business is an expected business. business,fficult hauling mail to all 50 states. incominging all of the mail, it is a complicated mess. situation.agine a let's make sure our viewers know they can join the conversation. we are going to open up regional lines about our conversation about the u.s. postal service. if you are in the eastern or central time zones, your phone number will be (202) 748-8000. if you are in the mountain or pacific time zones, your telephone number will be (202) 748-8001.

we are going to open up a special line for postal workers. if you work for the u.s. postal service, we want to hear from you. you have a special line, (202) 748-8002. once again, postal workers, (202) 748-8002. keep in mind, you can always text us at (202) 748-8003, and we are always reading on social media. cares act provided $10 billion for the postal service. $30 billion.r why was the $30 billion balked at? in part it was because many people on capitol hill were surprised by the request and the magnitude of it. i also think that the data that

could help make the case why such a large bailout was needed was not presented. came back service after making that initial $75est and then asked for billion. i think that had a lot of people's heads spinning. more than twice the initial request. act, what we got was a $10 billion initial borrowing line from the u.s. treasury. it helped the u.s. postal service remain liquid so i could pay its workers, but in the long run, it will not be enough. host: you have an article that to killmp is not trying the u.s. postal service.

like you said earlier, do we hear a lot about the postal service trying to be privatized or it going away? do you hear a lot about that? do you think the administration is trying to kill the postal service? guest: no. the administration is not trying to kill the postal service. president is popular in rural areas. popularthe president is among senior citizens in this society. they depend on the mail. so many americans get subscriptions by mail. 20 million people in the previous election -- gop voters got ballots by mail. disrupting the postal service

would have catastrophic results. if the president did that, he would pay a terrible price. host: let's let some of our viewers take part in the conversation. let's start with paul from reston, virginia. good morning. caller: good morning. this is a great segment. as the guest pointed out, the postal service offers a lot of different services to individuals that includes mail and packages. i am wondering to what extent the postal service understands the cost for each of these products and how good is it at pricing the products so they are profitable or at least break even? pricing is one of those issues that folks outside about. hear very little but it is extremely contentious

inside the beltway. it is contentious because there is a huge amount of money involved, and there is the question of fair competition. the postal service is an agency that is self funding. not something the taxpayers support. operating costs are paid for by people who send mail. they want to watch their bottom line, and they want to make sure they are paying a fair price. one development we have had in the past 10 years is that the postal service's mixture of mail has shifted. down,mail has been going the number of small packages has been going up. to maintain fairness and meet the requirements of the law and

to protect the private sector, we need to make sure the cost attribution toward all these products is done well. i think the process by which this happens is not as transparent as a lot of people would like. a lot of questions have been raised. host: let's go to tucson, arizona. she is a postal worker. good morning. are you there? caller: yes, i am. host:

but at a time when you have going down, and it is harder and harder to turn revenue, driving up operating costs each year is inheriting inherently problematic. the public opinion surveys i have seen have shown that the american people generally are quite happy to shift to the mail if they should bring further stability to the postal service. yet as you note, unions and other interest groups in town have been steadfast against it. i am wondering if we are

hitting of point where the financial situation of the postal service is so dire that the big players in postel policy will have our to come up with a deal. it may not be until ottumwa winter or early spring where the postal service -- it may or wintertil autumn or early spring, when the postal service runs out of cash. host: i am hearing a version of this question several times online. i will read a tweet that summarizes all the questions around this issue. it says -- the postal service needs to be relieved of the burden of funding their pensions 75 years in advance. it has to happen at this minute. no other u.s. entity is required to do this. kevin, we seen several versions of this question of

the u.s. ps having to fund its pensions 75 years in advance. what this isto us about, what happened, and who caused this problem? guest:

a popular myth that has been around for a long time. -- the calculations showed there was no way the postal service was granted taper all those retiree health care benefits. so the idea was let's create a fund and pre-fund these benefits. took $20 billion and ceded the fund and the postal service paid for the fund for 10 years. then it would be stretched out over a 40-year period. happened, the postal service was only able to fund until 2012. it didn't have the cash on hand, which proves the entire point of their retiree health benefits fund, which is that if money was not set aside, workers would have been

stiffed. i can tell you, from 2017, retirees have in getting their health care benefits paid out of the retiree health care benefits fund. i don't want to think about where we would the in that fund didn't exist. host: let's go to robert common from alexandria, virginia. robert is a -- calling from alexandria, virginia. the morning. caller: thanks for having me on. supervisor, and i heard the comments from the gentleman before. i don't necessarily disagree with what he is saying. to what i think he was alluding to, this is a very difficult time that is unprecedented. none of us are prepared for it. all my carriers are out there thery day, and although mail volume has significantly dropped, we have a pretty good increase of package volume.

also our delivery service has not been interrupted, we are still delivering to covid , still delivering the mail and getting everyone their medicine and their packages. theiras also upped anti-in this fight. the only thing is that our postal workers are out there and working really hard to try to maintain normalcy in this and burn the us in this environment. -- really hardr to try to maintain normalcy in this environment. as a supervisor, i couldn't be more proud. if you see your carriers, thank them. it is very difficult to wake up in the morning seeing numbers on tv of people hospitalized and knowing that you are right in the middle of that. so again, thank you all for the support. we will be here continuing to serve you. guest: thank you. you guys are doing so much out

there. with covid around, one of the things we forget is that we are in the course of a presidential election. we still have primaries to get through and then a general election, and we need the postal service so that people can vote by mail. we don't want to force people to have to go out to polling stations. thank you all for being out there. one of the things i have argued for in my political piece about how to save the postal service is that you guys should be getting an appropriation of $1 billion a year for the first responder duty. you are out there in the middle of a pandemic and you're not getting anything extra for that. bob, coming go to from san jose, california. bob also works for the postal service. good morning. caller: good morning. actually, i am a retiree from the postal service.

i am still active in the union, and my friends are in the post service, so i am constantly aware of what is going on there. i have a couple of issues. i strongly disagree with the idea about the pre-funding issue, but that has already been discussed. the other thing i was concerned about was the person who was opposed to the union. that we havere is negotiations with the post office every few years when the contracts come up. if there is no settlement, it goes to binding arbitration. makes it decision that is binding for both the post service and the union. in terms of what benefits are either given to that letter carriers or -- >> ok.