My everything-you-need-to-know columns don’t actually reveal everything you need to know about an issue.
But they always capture some essential truth about the inherent inefficiency and/or stupidity and/or malignancy of government.
- That’s true for state governments
- That’s true for local governments.
- That’s true for foreign governments.
And it is of course also true when looking at what happens in Washington.
As you can see from this tweet.
If you click on this link and watch Senator Paul grill the guy from the Postal Service, you’ll see that it’s mostly a discussion about the degree to which is better to utilize contractors (who are a much better deal for taxpayers since government employees are grossly overcompensated).
But I want to zoom out and consider the big picture. Actually, two big pictures.
First, I rarely say that the United States should copy Europe, but several nations on the other side of the Atlantic have eliminated government mail monopolies. The United States should do the same.
Second, there should be no more taxpayer bailouts for the Postal Service. If the bureaucrats want big paychecks, massive pensions, and lavish benefits, they need to somehow earn them.
The bottom line is that the Postal Service in many ways like the government education monopoly – something that operates for the benefit of employees rather than to serve intended beneficiaries.
Which is why my First Theorem of Government is just as true today as it was in 2015.
