USPS should be free to raise the price of a stamp

The Postal Service is broken, but there’s an easy way to fix it: Let the free market reign and let the USPS set the price of a stamp at whatever it needs to be to cover its budget gap.

I recently had to mail an envelope and I almost had to remember how it works! Stamp on the upper right, address in the middle, return address up in the lefthand corner. That’s how infrequently I mail anything. And that’s the problem. There are a lot of people like me who do most everything electronically these days.

Yet even in our digital era, the USPS still has a very vital role to play. Yesterday I had to go to a post office to pick up a package that they tried to deliver when nobody was home. Everybody in line was shipping packages. Not letters. So the USPS is like another competitor to FedEX and UPS.

Since that’s what they’ve become, I believe they should be left to run themselves as a business. FedEx and UPS don’t have Congress micro-managing them, do they? And then Congress turns around and says the USPS is an independent agency. (Editor’s note: The USPS receives no tax dollars toward its operation.) I say let them go free!

Set the price of a first class stamp at whatever the free market will allow so they can balance their books, even if its 50 cents or more.

There was a time when the Postal Service was the only game in town. Back in the early days of our nation, it tied together a vast rural country before the invention of the telegraph, let alone the telephone. But times have changed.

How ridiculous is it that in our modern era we have politicians grandstanding about which post office should stay open while others face closure?! Let’s face it: Congress has a 9% approval rating the last time I checked. So you have the “Nine Percenters” telling the USPS how to do business?!

Let’s end the role of Congress pretending the Postal Service is a private organization and then micro-managing how it’s run. Focus on getting the country’s books straight, Congress!