[Dove]

Isn't that a bit like driving a nail with a tactical nuke?

If you want a government program to deliver mail to obscure locations at a loss, create a program to do that. There's no reason for the government to assume responsibility for delivering all mail, and especially no reason for it to make it illegal for others to deliver mail!

And especially, especially no reason to protect the program from being cut as mail slowly becomes obsolete.

Must government insist on solving 100% of the problem when it doesn't trust the free market to handle that 0.5% case?

[ibsulon]

It would be more expensive, not less. The post office currently operates as efficiently as it does because of the economies of scale, and as such is close to break even.

It's not like the free market doesn't compete. UPS and FedEx are still around, for example, just not on bulk mail and first class. It also connects with other postal services in other countries, and reciprocity agreements are governed by treaties, making a true free market solution incongruous with the rest of the world.

PS -- the post office is the second oldest institution in the US, and government-controlled postal services go back to (at least) Darius I in Persia. There's more precedent for a privatized military.

[ippisl]

It doesn't have to be more expensive. if they cooperate with the companies that the deliver the profitable part of mail, the gain access to those economies of scale.