Say Anything Blog

An idea who's time has come?

Wired - It's been said that Americans will put up with anything - as long as it doesn't involve waiting in line. And as I wasted half a day mailing a gift this past holiday season, I asked myself why that sentiment doesn't apply to the US Postal Service. In the age of instant communication, with trillions of dollars crossing borders in nanoseconds and grandmas sending email, why do post offices even exist?

As a kid, I subscribed to National Lampoon, which had about a dozen blow-in cards per issue that basically read, pay us $7.95 a year and we will have a snappily dressed government employee personally deliver our magazine to your door. How'd they do that? Well, in 1825, Congress outlawed private mail delivery within cities and gave the USPS a monopoly over first-class letters and third-class items like magazines, catalogs, and junk mail (a prize if you can tell the difference).

But why does the USPS still have this monopoly? The only possible argument is that the US economy would grind to a halt without the postal service. It is, after all, one of the largest civilian employers. Its 707,000 workers need 37,000 post offices, 200,000 vehicles, and 15,000 daily flights to deliver some 550 million pieces of mail a day. . . .

Meanwhile, the USPS raked in a $3 billion profit in fiscal 2004 (untaxed) and plans to raise its rates, again, in 2006. The price hike is needed to cover the rising labor costs that make up a majority of their $65 billion in operating expenses. The Ludditious American Postal Workers Union has time and again fought labor-saving technologies that would increase efficiency. And postal workers' wages seem to stay above those of average factory employees. The USPS monopoly means no shareholders to complain, and no lawyers to file class actions against it.

So what would happen if this 180-year-old trust disappeared tomorrow? Would the US seize up like an engine without oil? Hardly. Better alternatives to the USPS are already here, and plenty of others would emerge.

I'd support an end to the Post Office. The economic impact of postal employees losing their jobs would be offset by the drastic increase of business for the private delivery companies. And businesses may even find a better, and more efficient, way of transacting business than through mail in abscence of the Postal Service. Bills, which account for a good chunk of postal business, would be cheaper for businesses (and citizens, in the long run) if they were paid online without the need for all that paper and postage. The same sort of solution could be applied in other places as well.

A postal service is neccessary to the development of any nation, but I'm not sure the cost of running this inefficient behemouth is worth what we're getting out of it. I think its time we got the government out of the postal business and let private enterprise take over.