The Oxymoron at the Root of USPS's Woes

In the Postal Points newsletter for the Association of Marketing Service Providers, postal commentator Leo Raymond, recently wrote about "an ongoing oxymoron that Congress, in its meddling ineptitude, continues to perpetuate: the Postal Service cannot be cast as a public service, with a 'universal service obligation,' while concurrently being told to be businesslike in its operations."

The universal service obligation means USPS has to provide roughly the same level of service to everyone at the same price, regardless of the agency's costs to serve a particular customer.