A recent story indicated that there was a councilman in the San Francisco area that suggested that there be a tax on email and internet downloads to help support the post office.

This has been one of those things that comes up every now and again and gets people stirred up, but I think that all of that overshadows what really needs to happen.  It is especially easy to tax something that people are using so that you can support what they are not.  It is a lot harder to do something that should have been done a long time ago.  I believe that thing is to privatize the entire postal system.

First, what that would do is encourage the postal service to find ways to economize.  Things would have to come around to be more budget friendly and then more changes would come.  Right now, the postal service can not make a profit.  They essentially have to figure out a way to make the income equal the outgo exactly.  That isn't exactly easy to do.  Make it so a profit can be made and you have something that is more workable.  You also have a way to make it easier on the customer.  Gone will be stamps that cost some odd amount and in will be stamps that cost an even amount.

While there was definitely a use to have a public postal system, when we got into the era where packages could be delivered by competing services, we got into a time when the postal service would be able to compete with private services.

In the end there would be competition, which makes everyone better and we would have a postal service that reports to a CEO and has the challenge of making more than what goes out.  That would solve a lot of problems and keep lawmakers from deciding that the postal service is a good reason to tax the internet.

More From News Talk 96.5 KPEL