The US Postal Service
Up until the 1970’s, the Postmaster General served as a Cabinet member in the executive branch of our federal government. Then, in 1971, the Post Office Department was replaced by the US Postal Service as part of a sweeping set of reforms. The Post Office became a non-partisan public organization. Congress transferred operational authority to a Board of Governors, with stamp prices set by an independent Postal Rate Commission.
Small minded politicians love to complain about what a terrible job government does when it gets involved in private sector industries. These partisans use this dishonest rhetoric as a means of serving their true masters: fat cat campaign contributors. Extremely wealthy CEOs don’t like fair competition from public or private sector groups, so they stuff the campaign coffers of willing and greedy political candidates. The politicians then give back by using their legislative and administrative resources to block consumer friendly public investments. It’s just good old fashioned cronyism wrapped up in clever sound bites like “personal accounts” and “ownership society”.
The objective evidence indicates that publicly owned organizations perform admirably when freed from the constraints of partisan politics. Postal employees concentrate on delivering the mail on time and don’t worry much about how to use their positions to favor one political party over another. And for the past 35 years, they’ve been as consistent as the seasons. Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.
Post Office, Postal Service, mail, Post Office Department, Postal Rates, stamps
August 9th, 2008 at 12:01 pm
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