Licking the Stamp of Big Government

 

by Rose Pedenko 

The Washington Post, bastion of journalistic excellence that it is, recently reported what most Americans already know – that the United States Postal Service is a failed government enterprise.  The Postal Service estimates $238 billion in losses in the next 10 years and a drop of 26 billion pieces of mail.  As most federal estimates go, that figure will likely increase exponentially under the ever coercive lawmakers, postal regulators and labor unions that want even more flexibility to compel Americans to absorb the cost of their inefficiency.  They seek impossible remedies in an effort to expand government control and ultimately stifle American incentive.  It’s as if the bureaucrats and liberal leaning media are tone-deaf to the mounting anger of the citizenry that want to reduce government spending--and want to reduce it now.

There was once a commonly held belief that delivering the U.S. mail was too big or impossible for private enterprise to handle efficiently.  It is clear that even the Postmaster General now acknowledges that the 13% drop in mail volume last year was a result of business migrating away to faster, cheaper and more dependable delivery via the internet or other more efficient, competitively-priced services.  That, of course, begs the question, why do we need the USPS?

Delivery services, like UPS and Fed-X, have been fully capable of handling comprehensive domestic distribution for years.  The fact they have been subject to corporation taxes, sales taxes, vehicle license taxes and other onerous regulations, means they have also effectively been subsidizing their biggest competitor--the U.S. Postal Service.  What a great country!!

The postal service lost $2.4 billion from April through June of 2009, bringing the year’s losses to $4.7 billion.  In spite of a bad economy, in the 4th quarter of 2009, UPS' domestic profits increased over 60% from the previously mentioned low point in the 2nd quarter.

Rather than Congress rationally evaluating the failures of this government entity to compete in the free marketplace, it has allowed Postmaster General John E. Potter to throw good money after no money by spending an additional $4.8 million for outside consultants to provide even more ideas to further rip-off American taxpayers.  At a time when other (better) products and services mean a drop in prices to Americans, as we have witnessed with cellular, cable and satellite services, the Post Office will increase prices that exceed the rate of inflation.

Another question that begs a rational answer is why we permit federal/public employees to unionize and further drive up costs to American taxpayers.  Labor unions not only complicate the agency’s path to a firm fiscal footing but will inevitably prevent it from ever achieving the kind of profits enjoyed by private enterprise.  The Post Office does not need to reshape how Americans send and receive their letters and packages--Americans are doing that themselves.  Perhaps this bad news from the post office will be accompanied by yet another attempt by government to regulate the chief competitor to the USPS--the internet.

Congress should be asking itself “what would happen if the Post Office failed?”  The answer, of course, is nothing.  Private enterprise is 100% capable of delivering all of the United States mail in a time and cost-effective manner.  But rather than stop the fiscal bleeding, our elected misrepresentatives will probably enact further mind-numbing legislation to prevent what should be the complete and utter demise of a badly run business.  Where else have we heard this lately?

Unlike consultants paid to blow smoke up the Postmaster General’s ass, I have no interest in the Post Office reducing its costs.  Americans should strongly encourage their “elected” officials to shut down the Post Office, eliminate the Postal Regulatory Commission, and while we are at it, the handful of other useless and inefficient agencies whose sole purpose is to swindle and steal from a citizenry that is quickly going postal.