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Here’s a letter to the Wall Street Journal:
Postmaster General John Potter complains that the U.S. Postal Service’s financial problems stem from “a legislatively imposed lack of flexibility in managing the Postal Service business” (Letters [2], Oct. 5).
Give me a break. The root problem here, while not the one that Mr. Potter singles out, is indeed “legislatively imposed” – namely, government’s grant to the USPS of an exclusive monopoly over the delivery of first-class mail. This grant of monopoly privilege is an unwarranted legislative imposition on entrepreneurs who would compete with the USPS and, more fundamentally, on consumers who would patronize those entrepreneurs.
It is more than a smidgen audacious for the CEO of a government-protected monopolist to complain about “legislatively imposed” restrictions.
Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux