A Fix for the Post Office : In Our Opinion

A recent article from MSNBC talks about how the post office continues to lose money and that they are being forced to close some offices, streamline operations and lay off some workers.  This is the culmination of many years of less and less letters being sent combined with higher costs and no return.

If you're going to be honest about the postal service, you have to admit that they have been one of the few government bright spots in it's early existence.  This is an organization that will deliver your letter for the price of a stamp and will do it, "through snow, sleet, dark of night" etc.  I think that it might be time to do something drastic that would save the postal service money, bring them to a level of success that they haven't previously known and solve their current problems.

I am of the firm belief that the United States Postal Service should be privatized.  This is a firm that does things that other operations do as well.  UPS and Fed Ex have been well known for sending packages anywhere for several years now and being in private hands, they know how to make things work.  The Postal Service is mandated by it's charter not to make money.  In addition to delivering the mail and making sure everything gets where it's supposed to do, they are charged with looking into their crystal ball and making sure they budget things so close that they don't make any money from year to year.  The most recent results of that have shown that the Postal Service is losing money.  That's why the cost of stamps go up every year and that's why they always go up to some bizarre amount that means you have to carry pennies in your pocket to make up the odd amount of difference.

If you spun the post office off into private hands, they would make sure that it is run efficiently and without trouble.  Many of the things that trouble the post office would disappear because now they would be alright with making a profit, in fact that is exactly what you would want.  Stamps would always be priced at an even amount and things would be taken care of in the area of customer service so people would be happy and well treated.

I think it's time to make a change for today's times.  Let the post office compete for business with Fed Ex and UPS and you'll see things happening for each organization to improve.  Competition always does that and it's high time that the Post Office has some legitimate competition.