Forced Between a Rock and a Hard Place V

Trey Smith

Today we're taking a look at the article, The Postal Service Outrage, by Dave Johnson of The Campaign for America's Future. In previous posts, we looked at Bullet Points 1, 2, 3 and 4.

Bullet Point #5: But along with requiring the Postal Service to break even, Congress has restricted the Service’s ability to raise rates, enter new lines of business or take other steps to help it raise revenue. In fact, while detractors complain that the Postal Service is antiquated, inefficient and burdened by bureaucracy, the rules blocking the Postal Service from entering new lines of business do so because the Postal Service would have advantages over private companies. For example, Republicans in Congress forced the Postal Service to remove public-use copiers from Post Offices and even blocked the Postal Service from setting up a secure online system that allowed Americans to make monthly bill payments.

I hope you are recognizing a pattern here. The USPS has had an unreasonable mandate foisted upon it and yet Congress has gone out of its way to erect barriers to thwart the efforts of the USPS to satisfy that same mandate. It would be like a parent telling their child they must clean up their bedroom in order to be served dinner and then tying up child. How do you clean your room when your feet are bound and your hands are tied behind your back?

It is rather obvious that privatization advocates are trying hard to ensure that the USPS ultimately fails. When that happens, they will be more than happy to swoop in to "save the day!!"