Public Policy is not a business plan.

Public Policy is often at odds with the profit driven rigors and regiment of a business plan.

While talking to a friend on FB who hammered Bernie & Hillary for the "Free Shit" of college and medicine for all citizens and another who came in with the business plan trope to support it, it hit me.

I started with the question:

Do Government Institutions Have to Make a Profit?

No answer, some talk of inflation and budgets and meetings and whatnot, but all from the business end.

Some additional prodding:

Why do they have to be competitive?

And the problem isn't that they are not competitive, it is that they are *too* competitive. This is because they have no profits to make.

This too competitive stance is why they've been saddled with the pre-funded pension scheme that makes it easy to say things like "the post office is in trouble" and that "they need to be competitive".

Cost of postage of a 1st class letter has gone up from $.14 in the 1860s to a whopping $.47 in 2016 - 337% over 150 years. The private sector not only can't compete, they won't compete in that market if the Post Office is going to "cheat" and not increase rates with inflation or charge "what the market will bear".

Schools are the same, IMO, and given that a college education is all but required for a decent shot at life today, public schooling should be extended to include public colleges.

The angst against free college comes from the profit place, and from all of our personal experiences with barriers to entry and the debt we bear from college.

In 1st World countries, around the globe, college is not a profit scheme with six figure administrators and broadcast contracts with corporate media. It's a place to educate your citizens. An educated citizenry is a strong asset for a nation, but a liability for a pool of consumers.

My point is that they are not competitive with the private sector. The private sector cannot compete on the merits, because the post office is not required to seek profit. So private shipping companies have lobbied congress to hamstring the post office with the pre-funding of pensions and the philosophical requirements that a national institution has to earn a "profit" or be a negative on the economy.

That is not how things work.

We don't demand profits or ROIs on the post office and other institutions because it is government.

These institutions are deemed a vital public service and are the infrastructure requirements for a first world country -- roads, FDIC insurance, SEC regulation, signage, sidewalks, schools, water treatment plants, power infrastructure, etc -- all of that shit is not required to make a profit, they are vital public services.

Private interests benefit greatly from our first class national infrastructure and our, formerly strong, public service institutions. We've privatized and hollowed out our vital public services and let the regulators be captured by the very private entities they are supposed to regulate. We are running shit into the dirt because... profit!

The idea that college education not be indentured servitude was a common idea back in the day -- public colleges being nearly free. That's a long way in the rearview mirror. So far in fact, that young adults not wanting to go tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt "just want free shit" is the way we interpret the problem.

Friend:
Then your original question "should it make a profit.' My answer is: It should have a Budget. It should be ran competitive like a business. If there is an overage than a meeting should be made to send the people their money back (or lower prices if it is the post office?) Or have have a meeting whether things need to be replaced - buildings, cars, technology....scholarships.)

Me
It does have a budget, but is not run like a business, because it is not a business. It is a public service. They create postage rates, to partially, offset the cost. The rest is covered with services -- Boxes, Shipping products, Money Orders, Fed Ex, UPS, Amazon on Sunday? -- and what that doesn't cover we, via our elected representatives decide what burden the public will bear for this vital service.

If they were being run like a business, it would be "what the market would bear" and we'd have $4 letters, like UPS.

But because a publicly subsidized, reliable system that facilitates legal and personal correspondence is more efficient and cost effective *for a citizen* than market based shipping is for a *consumer* -- because of that, we have funded it and not demanded it make a profit. Until recently...

The idea that they don't have a budget and meetings is silly. They do the same thing as a business, just without the profit motive. And the Post Office has done it, very well, for a hundred and fifty years with only 337% increase in cost in *non-inflated* dollars.

That is a bad business plan, but good public policy.

I think that closing sentence is super strong, and that the idea is a powerful framing tool.

I hope to have some kind of discussion about it...