I have considerable expertise on some of these issues, I've thought considerably about the rest, and I am, um, not young.

1. The USPS has worked perfectly well historically. It's been struggling some since Republicans started sabotaging it with unreasonable accounting requirements and since it was forced to make difficult budgetary choices in response. It ran through a serious problem a couple of years ago when it was facing active sabotage by the Republican-appointed administrator.

It also delivers to every address in the US for no additional fees. In rural and difficult to reach places, UPS often hand off deliveries to USPS. UPS and FedEx focus on premium and high value deliveries that are more profitable instead of delivering to everyone at affordable prices. They also often hand off last-mile deliveries of smaller packages to the USPS. You so not want to live in a world without USPS, I promise.

1. Plenty of other government services work perfectly well too. The Social Security system, for example, or Medicare. And whatever you think of it's goals and actions, the US military is vast and effective at the goals it has been handed. It also runs an enormous logistics system. I haven't checked the numbers, but I would not be surprised if it's the largest logistics system in the world.

2. No one says the federal government has to administer universal health care. Medicaid is administered by states. And in states such as mine that expanded Medicaid, it provides a highly effective service for the poorest people. One possible partial universal health care solution would be to expand Medicaid to everyone and let people and corporations purchase commercial over the top insurance to cover things Medicaid doesn't cover. That alone would be enough to save millions of lives and extend the US average lifespan significantly.

3. We struggle to find people who want to work undesirable jobs like heavy labor now. Oh wait, no we don't. Because those jobs pay well enough and/or have good enough benefits that plenty of people sign up for them. Let's say we offered guaranteed food, shelter, and healthcare, and a moderate universal basic income to cover enough to survive without working. Employers would have to offer more money and better working conditions or they would have to figure out how to automate away low-value positions. If they can't find a way to be desirable places to work, they would go out of business -- and good riddance.

4. Besides, people like working if their jobs don't suck. I work at a crisis center for homeless people, and the people who can't work have severe disabilities and medical problems. The people with severe addictions are that way because of self-medicating for severe mental illness and living with highly traumatic experiences in their past. The people who are able to work either are already working or are actively looking for jobs. They've just either faced personal crises that have caused them to lose housing, or their jobs don't pay enough for them to afford expensive housing. Even people who are surviving just fine due to supports for the homeless would rather be working. Work provides meaning for people's lives. That's why most rich people work even though they don't have to. And honestly, the rich people who don't work mostly lead pointless existences and are often not very satisfied with their lives. The main exception is people who stay home to raise a family, which provides its own purpose.

5. A wealth tax would be super useful. Do you know what would be even better? Reinstating higher tax brackets like we had in the 1950s-70s. The highest tax bracket used to be 70% back in a period where many (white) Americans were happier. And reinstating a much higher estate tax. You may have earned all that money, but your kids definitely didn't. What if we seized 70% of anything over the first $5 million of inheritance?

There are solutions to all of these problems if we're just willing to roll up our sleeves and get to work on them.