It’s the end of the United States Postal Service as we
know it. Rain, snow, and gloom of night may not have able to stay
these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds,
but technical progress and a huge budget deficit apparently
can.
I, for one, will miss the postal service. For decades the
agency has served a useful purpose. I don’t mean delivering my
sewer bill. No, the USPS has long functioned as my chief example of
the staggering ineptitude of governmental agencies.
Sure, there have been countless other instances of the
federal government’s legendary incompetence. The welfare system
totally wrecked marriage, morals, and the underclass. Unless you
were the Rev. Al Sharpton, a D.C. bureaucrat, or a drug peddler,
welfare was a complete and utter disaster. And who can deny the
wonders the U.S. Department of Education has done for our public
schools since becoming its own cabinet-level department? Last, but
not least, there are the perpetual and unwinnable wars on drugs and
poverty. If America’s conventional military conflicts were as
successful as our government’s metaphorical wars, there’d be a
Russian tank and a diskoteka on
every street corner in Kansas.
The U.S. Postal Service, however, has long been my go-to
agency when I needed an example of government bureaucracy at its
worst. Every time America would invade some godforsaken country
like Afghanistan or Iraq, and pundits and politicians would start
yapping about spreading democracy and nation building, I would
ponderously mount my soapbox and proclaim: “What makes those
Wilsonian knuckleheads in Washington think they can build a
democratic republic in [blankistan] when they can’t even run a
lousy post office?”
And it is only getting worse. Today the situation is
so dire the agency may soon eliminate Saturday mail delivery. This
is fine by me. The only mail I receive these days are medical bills
and circulars that go right into the wife’s recycle bin, and that
can certainly wait till Monday. Hell, it can wait till
Tuesday.
The USPS may also close up to 3,700 postal
locations. Also, fine by me. I seldom go to the post office,
especially since they removed the stamp machine from the lobby. I
suppose they did this so I would have the opportunity to stand in
line for an hour to buy one lousy stamp. Now, where the stamp
machine used to be, the postmaster has thoughtfully tacked to the
wall a sheet of paper that reads: “Books of stamps can be purchased
at the counter during business hours, or at the grocery store
across the street.” This is so I can make two stops to mail one
letter. Not that it mattered. The machine was always out of order
anyway.
The postal service’s deficit will reportedly reach
$9.2 billion this fiscal year. That’s a lot of money to be in the
hole even by Washington standards. Worse, the USPS may lay off
nearly one-fifth of its work force, tossing 120,000 employees out
of work, right on the brink of a double-dip
recession.
Like any government monopoly, the USPS has always been
inefficient, lethargic, and unprofessional. And those were its good
points. Now it has gone completely bust, too. The reasons for this
must be obvious. The agency has always given the unions whatever
they asked for, including no-layoff clauses (nice guaranteed work
if you can get it), the best health benefits in the country,
and the right to wear funny shorts to work. Until June,
the postal service was paying $115 million every two
weeks to the Federal Employees Retirement System. Even Europe’s
quasi-socialist governments have been more pro-free market than the
U.S., allowing competition and a mix of private and public
ownership of their postal services.
The New York Times
notes that unless Congress takes “emergency action” the
USPS may shut down entirely this winter. Conservatives have been
dreaming about privatizing the postal service for decades.
Moreover, we now have email, faxes, text messages, and Federal
Express. If there is still a need for snail mail, trust me, some
ambitious entrepreneur will fill it. With the exception of the
laid-off postal workers, I doubt most Americans would even notice
its demise.
Personally, the biggest loss I will feel will be
coming up with another example of supreme government
incompetence.
Fortunately, there’s still Amtrak.
