Government Services

 Please Mister Postman

Mister Postman look and see
(Oh, yeah) Is there a letter in your bag for me?
(Please, please, Mister Postman) I been waiting a long, long time
(Oh, yeah) Since I heard from that girl of mine

There is a difference between a government service and a business

The post office is under siege these days.  Since 2006 it has been operating under rules that have assumed it is a business.  Given that its very name is the United States Postal SERVICE, I am not sure why it is assumed to be a business.  It is a government service.

You can choose to use a  business.  You are provided government services.  It may be a business decision that it is too expensive to deliver prescriptions to rural areas, but that is not a governmental decision.  The Post Office has been in existence longer than the United States has had a constitution.  As a society we have decided that while it may be unprofitable, and thus not a good business decision, to deliver some letters and packages, it is still essential to deliver every letter and package. 

 
Business can go bankrupt.  If they do, then the losers are those businesses but also the creditors and customers of that business.  Governments can NOT, by definition, go bankrupt since we as the government are also its creditors and customers.  (yes, I realize that some city governments have gone bankrupt, but that is only because some other government bailed them out.  Governments can truly go bankrupt only if every government also went bankrupt and there was no one to bail them out, e.g. make their customers and creditors whole.)

Government services are NOT supposed to make a profit.  It is nice if they do, but that is not the point.  Trying to force them to make a profit is effectively making it NOT a service and if that is the case, then we should at east be honest and also remove service from the USPS name.