Government Operations Depend on Mail

As Congress turns its attention to its next two budget deadlines, there is talk about doing away with the U.S. Postal Service as an austerity measure. Cultural advocates and community organizers have jumped to offer a list of reasons why that would be a terrible idea. People in Washington should be more eager to add to that list. We so take mail delivery for granted, officials are having a hard time grasping the many ways that government would not function without it. I’ve mentioned the difficulty of collecting taxes without mail, but that is just the beginning. Everything from courts to elections would be less effective if the mails became less reliable. In truth, dismantling the postal service would not be an end in itself, but just an initial step toward anarchy.