(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . An Example of Why Gov't Can't Be Run Like a Business: The Postal Service [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2024-12-14 Every now and then, the country gets the insane idea of putting a businessman in the White House on the theory that “America should be run like a business.” This is totally wrong. Businesses exist to make a profit for their shareholders. The preamble to the Constitution spells out the purpose of our government: to “establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence [sic], promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.” Not a word about profit; in fact, the federal government is the only US government legally capable of operating at a deficit. Forbes magazine (which describes itself as a capitalist tool) explained this in 2012: Why Government Should Not Be Run Like A Business: [T]o ask that the government be run like a business is tantamount to asking that the government turn a profit. The problem in a nutshell, is that not everything that is profitable is of social value and not everything of social value is profitable. [emphasis in original] Case in point: The US Postal Service. The Constitution gives Congress the power (though not the obligation) to create a postal service: “The Congress shall have power . . . To establish post offices and post roads” (Art. I Section 8). Today, we enjoy a robust postal system because Congress had the enumerated powers to establish post offices and post roads. Understanding the Constitution's Postal Clause The Post Office does not make money; it needs subsidies from Congress to keep going. There is a reason for this: Although Congress did not have to set up and maintain a postal system, once it did so, it was obligated to deliver the mail wherever people live, even if it loses money doing so. (It took a while for this to be universal; rural free delivery was finally put in place only around 1902.) This makes the postal service uniquely able to supply “last mile delivery” because of its mandate to go where carriers who operate on the profit motive find too expensive to service. (“Why USPS is the perfect fit for the last mile.”) Now comes Trump, who measures all things by whether they make profit (especially for him), and thinks the Post Office needs to be privatized because it costs the government too much money. Trump eyes privatizing U.S. Postal Service, citing financial losses: President-elect Donald Trump has expressed a keen interest in privatizing the U.S. Postal Service in recent weeks, three people with knowledge of the matter said, a move that could shake up consumer shipping and business supply chains and push hundreds of thousands of federal workers out of the government. It’s probably that last part that most appeals to him, as it helps reduce the size of the federal government to “bathtub drowning” proportions. But it’s also that the postal service isn’t a money-maker: Told of the mail agency’s annual financial losses, Trump said the government should not subsidize the organization, the people said. The people spoke on the condition of anonymity to reflect private conversations. . . . [A]s congressional Republicans and others in Trump’s orbit have clamored in recent weeks for federal cost-cutting, the Postal Service has emerged as a prominent target. The rural parts of the country that gave Trump his victory will be the ones most hurt by this plan: [T]he agency’s “universal service obligation” — which requires it to deliver mail or parcels regardless of distance or profitability concerns — means it is often the only carrier that will deliver to far-flung reaches of the country. . . . Attempts to privatize one of the most prominent parts of the federal government could spark a political backlash, especially for Republicans representing rural districts that the agency disproportionately serves. Trump doesn’t care. And it’s not his first attempt at sabotaging the mail: Ahead of the 2020 election, Trump said the Postal Service was incapable of facilitating mail-in voting because the agency could not access the emergency funding he was blocking. (Trump continues to redefine “chutzpah.”) Side note: Writers on this forum have long complained that Biden never got rid of Postmaster General Louis DeJoy. The reason is that only the postal board of governors can fire him, and: The Postal Service has three vacancies on its nine-member governing board. Among sitting members, three are Republicans, and two of those are Trump appointees. Biden has three pending nominees, but the Senate does not appear poised to confirm them before Trump’s inauguration. The last time we elected a businessman to be president was 1928 — Herbert Hoover — and we ended up with the Great Depression. Hoover, at least, had been successful in business and also had prior experience in government. This time around, we chose a conman who ran several businesses into the ground, each time escaping responsibility through bankruptcy, stiffing creditors and investors, and generally blaming everyone but himself. But that hasn’t stopped voters from believing he was a success and that he should be given the chance to run the United States like one of his businesses. Oy. 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