It's hard to find a better example of just how steeped Washington has become in the thinking that brought us to this fiscal nightmare. The U.S. Postal Service is losing $15.9 billion a year. Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe proposes to cut back on Saturday home delivery to save $2 billion a year. Of course, Congress can order it to cancel that plan and let the red ink keep flowing. And of course, Congress will do exactly that.
The Wall Street Journal points out that Congress's latest act of fiscal genius is bipartisan, with the House already having passed the measure and the Senate soon to follow:
Thanks a lot. Ending Saturday delivery would save about $2 billion a year, which is at least something. The longer Congress waits to give Mr. Donahoe the power to close little-used rural post offices, end Saturday delivery and reduce pensions and the number of employees, the more likely it is that taxpayers will have to spend tens of billions of dollars to keep the entire operation from going bust.
Conventional wisdom in Washington - and this typically extends to state houses and media types all across the country - is that the American people crave every "government service" they can get but don't want to pay for them. We'll discuss in an upcoming column whether this is really true, or a self-fulfilling prophecy born of the cowardice of the political class. But you have to say that this move by Congress perfectly reflects the belief that this is the case.
What would happen if the Post Office ended Saturday home delivery? Some people would be unhappy, of course. They would also start to feel consequences of the fiscal irresponsibility that has been governing the nation for generations, but especially over the past five years. When you don't have the money for what you want, you have to settle for something less than what you want.
Are the American people really unable to grasp this? It's the way we live our lives every day, after all. We don't all go buying things we can't afford, and expecting free things we can't pay for. And yet we all expect endless, limitless government services regardless of the government's fiscal condition?
Our political class is a disgrace. It not only refuses to practice fiscal responsibility, it also refuses to let any effect of fiscal reality be felt by the public at large. They're going to live their delusion, and we're going to live it right along with them, because no one can do without anything in America.
Like Obama says, we're not facing an "immediate fiscal crisis." Why fix anything until we allow ourselves to turn into Detroit first?
