U.S. Postal Service Is Government Bureaucracy Run Amok

The U.S. Postal Service is the quintessential government bureaucracy that is incapable of meaningful reform or improvement. Even though the volume of mail is declining at an astounding rate due to the internet as well as high costs of postage, the American public is supposed to tolerate substandard service as if it is simply understood and accepted as a fact of life.

The Postal Service has been pricing itself out of the market for years. Given a choice, I suspect most people would gladly select an alternative if one was available for ordinary mail. When such an option presented itself for expedited delivery via Federal Express and its cohorts, the public and the business community bolted, preferring service and accountability to the government-subsidized "public option." Sound eerily familiar?

While the private sector has been forced to keep costs under control to remain competitive, the compensation and benefits awarded to postal workers and other federal employees are out of whack. Instead of previously being a lesser-paid alternative to the private sector with job security, its pay structure now vastly exceeds equivalent job opportunities in the "real" world.

This attitude of government-tenure jobs with never-ending cost increases is leading not only the postal service but our entire government apparatus to the brink of bankruptcy. It's about time government workers were held to the same standards, compensation and benefits as everyone else. Just think of what that would do to the budget deficit.