Stan
does the math nobody did
The loop the town built by voting. Five motions and one bill all push the same arrow.
Act 2 · Every man, woman and child
Here is the part the meeting never got to. The town's five motions and Washington's one bill do the same thing to the same machine — and the machine has a shape. It is a loop, and the town built it by voting.
Fewer pieces over a fixed network = higher cost per piece. Always.
Last-mile costs — the carrier, the route, the vehicle — were nearly a third of USPS operating costs and rose 19.4% from FY2008 to FY2018 while volume collapsed. GAO's stated reason: six-day delivery to a delivery-point count that keeps growing no matter what.
Source: GAO-20-190
Higher cost per piece is the legal basis for the next rate increase.
Density rate authority under 39 CFR 3030.162 grants USPS extra pricing headroom precisely when volume per delivery point falls. Remove the statements and you are not just taking revenue — you are handing the regulator the paperwork for the next hike.
Source: 39 CFR 3030.162
The next hike is paid by everyone who never had a brokerage account.
Grandmothers mailing birthday cards. The pizza place mailing coupons. The church newsletter. None of them were consulted, none of them benefit from the $3–4 billion, and all of them pay for the volume that left.
Source: PRC, State of the Postal Service
This is motion six. Nobody had to vote for it.
Motions one through five required a room, a gavel and a show of hands. Motion six requires nothing. It is arithmetic now, and arithmetic doesn't adjourn.
Source: USPS FY2025 Form 10-K; FY2026 Integrated Financial Plan
You don't. You can't repeal arithmetic. You can only change the input — and there is exactly one input in this entire diagram.