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You have to tip your cap to the USPS, if for no other reason than making the dysfunction of government monopolies crystal clear.
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| With a relentless and dynamic free-market economy, American culture is one in which language sometimes outlasts the realities to which it refers. Thus, despite the fact that debit cards and direct deposits have largely obviated the need for checkbooks – and even though e-mail has eviscerated the demand for letters sent by post – most Americans still know the ironic meaning behind the phrase “the check is in the mail.” It’s an assurance of no assurance at all – a shorthand for smoothly delivered promises that will never be fulfilled.
All the hundreds of speeches, press releases and town halls that have made up the first two and half years of the Obama presidency have essentially operated on that principle. Basically free, effective healthcare for all Americans? We can do that.
Clean energy powered by technologies no one knows how to make cost effective? Sure, we’ll pass a bill.
Greater esteem on the world stage? We’ll just have the president make a few house calls.
Don’t worry about it; the check is in the mail. In fact, if the president is to be believed, virtually the only check you won’t be receiving is for Social Security, because it turns out that Republicans’ only motivation for opposing an increase in the debt ceiling is to stick it to millions of geriatric Americans.
None of the political promises have come true. But even if they had, there’d still be a bit of a problem. You see the government that wants to be your doctor, design your car and do your grocery shopping, not only can’t write the check, it can’t get the mail sorted either.
Earlier this week, U.S. Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe told the editorial board of USA Today that financial difficulties for the U.S. Postal Service (it’s facing default on a $5.5 billion health care guarantee to its unionized workers) could lead to restricting mail service to Monday, Wednesday and Friday. That’s right, they can handle rain, snow and sleet – just not on consecutive days.
You have to tip your cap to the USPS, if for no other reason than making the dysfunction of government monopolies crystal clear. Despite the beating that snail mail has taken from its rivals in the last decade and a half, it still takes some talent to face insolvency when you’re in the business of providing a service used by everyone in the nation. And it takes a commensurate amount of chutzpah to respond to revealed inefficiency with proposed inconvenience.
So the next time that someone in Washington starts telling you that more government intervention can bring you better health care at a lower cost; that Wall Street’s worse instincts could be curbed by enough well-dressed people sitting behind desks at the Treasury Department; or that all America needs to have a gangbusters education system is a little more cash, keep this in mind: These are people who are flummoxed by the economics of the postage stamp.
Don’t expect that thought to make any headway in the White House, however. President Obama’s proposed 2011 budget recommended $11 billion in relief to the sputtering USPS. That check, we can assume, is in the mail.
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