This:
'But here’s the thing: The mail is the mail. It’s an unsexy but essential component of the government safety net. It’s a public service we need, one that’s used most by folks with the fewest resources — the elderly, the poor, people with disabilities, people with limited internet access.
If you screw with the mail, you’re screwing with people in need. You’re screwing with the common good.
On that stage in Columbia, Missouri yesterday, only one of the three candidates was willing to stand up for the mail, and it’s no accident that it was the Democrat.'
Mail service really is one of those "let them eat cake" portions of our public life. Folks who are comfortably well off, including most politicians, kind of pooh-pooh it — we have the Internet now, and everyone has a computer and a smartphone to access email on the Internet, and access to electronic banking, and, besides, who writes letters any more? — and figure that nobody who matters would have a problem if the USPS vanished, had its (more lucrative) routes bought by FedEx, or charged $1/stamp. They're probably part of that 47% anyway, so what do they need mail for?
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Party Politics, the Post Office, and the Common Good
I spent a few days in Missouri last week, giving a talk and hanging out with local campus activists. They’ve got a fascinating senate race in Missouri this year, between Todd “legitimat…
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AOL still has millions of dial-up users… That doesn't even start to count the folks who have no Internet access at all, which are plentiful enough that I still hear "Do you have an e-mail address?" or "If you have access to the Internet" on support phone calls or when working with contractors.
I do think stamps need to go up in price though. If website can get away with charging $3-4 to electronically send money, the post office should be able to get away with raising first-class mail postage to .60-.65
That the USPS needs Congress' permission to raise stamp prices is kind of stupid.
They need permission to do just about everything…. and yeah, real stupid.
"We'll treat them as a business and hold them to business standards — but we will manage them by committee (and congress)." Smooth.