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
6 comments:
'You're so right'
Tom, The Post Office built Post Road from New York to Boston with money from stamps. What a different work we have today with e-mail. Almost none of the personal correspondence or legal papers that were sent by mail in those days are sent by mail anymore. Almost all of the mail for the past ten years has been advertising, and even that is being done more on the internet. I don't think this technological change has anything to do with politics. The fact is that the system that exists is inappropriate for the service is provides, which is why it needs to be reformed in one way or the other. It would be nice to see some reduced remnant of what it was, but it can't be compared to the DMV, which continues to perform a valuable service that everyone uses.
You're right on, Tom.
Wish I had time just now to chronicle the horrendous cost-adding behavior of UPS. I'm so very afraid our tiny but wonderful post office will be closed. Their new priority boxes are terrific! A wonderful addition. So very many people who work at home, like me, will be greatly harmed by the shut down of far-flung PO's.
Naida West
Thanks for your comments folks,
I suppose Gordon is right about too much junk mail in our mailboxes every day...
But let's not argue whether or not the Post Office should be abolished. It should not; in time, maybe reduced, I guess...
My essay is a general defense of the public sector and of public, tax-supported services, which are currently under attack.
There are other, more egregious examples of the privatization craze:
The trend to privatize prisons and juvenile institutions and to run them for profit; private tollways for those rich enough to use them; the proliferation of mail-order diploma factories passing themselves off as "Universities," etc.
Tom, I think the "privatization craze" is fueled by the failure of the public sector to exercise fiscal discipline. Many of the efforts are coming from the public sector as a way of shoving off responsibility for these programs on the private sector when they fail manage them well. The post office reforms are coming from within the post office administration itself.
Thanks, Gordon,
no doubt about it, reform can be good. Let's all hope for a leaner and meaner (=more efficient) Post Office.
Post a Comment
Please limit your comment to 300 words at the most!