Who Needs the Post Office, DMV and All the Other Services?

By Tom Kando

This picks up where I left off a year ago: Then, I questioned the near-universally accepted cliché that the private sector does everything better than the public sector. The perception that government is the problem, not the solution; that government is exceptionally corrupt; that public pensions with defined benefits are ruining the country, and that everyone should switch to defined contributions instead (i.e. stock market-based) retirement plans; that unions are much too powerful.


While these right-wing beliefs are strongest among conservatives and Republicans, they are increasingly accepted by others as well - people who think of themselves as “reasonable.” They are also propagated by a-political and ignorant comedians like Jay Leno and Jimmy Fallon.

Nowadays, when someone cracks a joke about the inefficiency of the Post Office, or government waste, most listeners laugh approvingly. “Haha, you are so right!”

Pundits claim that there is a vast difference between the economically depressed 1930s and the current Great Recession: Back then, there was widespread support for President Roosevelt, for his New Deal and for his public projects. Most Americans agreed with him that “if we don’t hang together, we will hang separately.” People saw the government as part of the solution, not the principal cause of the problem. Not so today.

So when the US Post Office announces that it will shut down several hundred offices, some people clamor that it should be abolished altogether. Who needs the post office?, they ask. It loses money, and it is inefficient. UPS is way better. We should privatize all mail delivery, they say. Same with Amtrak. Get rid of it.

But this is all based on the preposterous view that private companies do a great job, i.e. deliver goods and services cheaply, efficiently and honestly, whereas government agencies do everything badly.

Surely your experiences refute this, no? During the recent holiday season, I saw many postal trucks deliver mail and packages on Sunday. Our local post office is always immensely busy. It processes thousands upon thousands of customers every day, efficiently and amicably. Passport renewal? Done very efficiently.

Same with the Social Security and Medicare administration. I wish all businesses with which I deal had the same phone system as that agency: When you call, instead of putting you on hold, they record your number and call you back!

A few weeks ago, we found a wounded black bird in our backyard. Within one hour, animal control came over and rescued the bird - on Sunday!

Despite cut-backs, law enforcement response time is still impressively rapid. I know this from personal experience.

Dare I say it? In my experience, even the IRS is relatively user-friendly.

Your dealings with Amazon, with the Bank of America, with Delta and United Airlines, with Intel, with Apple, with Verizon, with your insurance company are so much better? They are so much more helpful? You enjoy talking to the help desk in New Delhi? You enjoy choosing between being on hold for 45 minutes or being forced to navigate company websites for hours? You enjoy having to do everything yourself - assembling, downloading, programming, learning - after you purchase something?

Give me the good old Post Office, DMV, the INS, SS, the local police and sheriff departments, Animal Control, Parks and Recreation, the School District. Kicking these institutions may get Jay Leno some laughs, but starving them and dismantling them is idiotic.leave comment here