Chris Edwards for Downsizing the Federal Government: The U.S. Postal Service has lost more than $50 billion since 2007, even though it enjoys legal monopolies over letters, bulk mail and access to mailboxes. The USPS has a unionized, bureaucratic and overpaid workforce. And as a government entity, it pays no income or property taxes, allowing it to compete unfairly with private companies in the package and express delivery businesses. …
The USPS needs a major overhaul. It should be privatized and opened to competition.
But instead of reform, congressional Republicans are moving forward with legislation that tinkers around the edges. Their bill adjusts retiree healthcare, raises stamp prices and retains six-day delivery despite a 40 percent drop in letter volume since 2000. The bill also would create “new authority to offer non-postal products,” thus threatening to increase the tax-free entity’s unfair competition against private firms. …
Why are Republicans so timid in advancing free market postal reforms? Their timidity is particularly striking when you compare their no-reform bill to the dramatic postal reforms in Europe. The European Union released a detailed report last year on the postal landscape in its 28 member countries. The report is written in the EU’s bureaucratic language, but it nonetheless reveals some impressive changes:
? Since 2012, all EU countries have opened their postal industries to competition for all types of mail.
? A growing number of countries have privatized their postal systems, including Britain, Germany, Portugal and the Netherlands. Other countries, such as Italy, are moving in that direction.
Surrogate nagging
Jacob Murray for the Brookings Institution: In the case where parents struggle to find time and resources to consistently support their children’s learning, there may be other ways to offer support. I propose a novel solution: enlisting other adults to positively nag children about their school work, engage them in supplemental skill-building activities, and communicate with their teachers.
For example, let’s say a retired school teacher from Newton completes a 10 to 15 minute Skype “check-in” every school night with a Boston fifth grader to review her homework assignments, answer questions and complete a five-minute vocabulary building exercise. If necessary, the retired teacher might complete a quick, five-minute loop-back call to see how the student is progressing. Prior to that week, on Sunday night, the retired teacher receives a five-minute online briefing through an academic coaching software platform from the fifth grader’s teacher that outlines all the homework and learning concepts for the upcoming week. In addition, the retired teacher has access to an online library of academic strategies and resources. At the end of the week, the retired teacher sends the teacher a brief report on how the nightly sessions went. The retired teacher might include in this report a recommendation for extra help with a topic the student struggled with that week.
There are two trends that make this scenario viable. The first trend is the onward march of technology. More families have smartphones and tablets, and schools could provide tablets to families who do not have them or a consistent wireless plan. Face-to-face communication tools and online academic coaching platforms are affordable and accessible. New apps are emerging, such as SchoolCNXT, that offer simple, intuitive platforms for facilitating school-family communication and hosting a range of learning resources. Further, children today are comfortable and facile with digital communication and learning.
The second trend is the massive baby boomer retirement. The Social Security Administration projects that 10,000 baby boomers retire each day. Thus retirees offer a large, potential resource of educated, caring adults who have free time.
Danger on the Web
Daniel Savickas for Americans for Tax Reform: The Internet, as we know it, is moving ever closer to falling into the hands of people and governments who don’t respect the right to free speech.
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is responsible for oversight of domain name registration, an important role in Internet governance. To ensure this all runs smoothly, and fairly, the U.S. government retains jurisdiction over the organization.
This is about to change.
The Commerce Department recently approved a plan that would transition ICANN from U.S. oversight to a purely independent organization. This would expand its role from what is essentially being the white pages of the Internet to one that has far more control and influence over the basic function of the Web.
Not to mention, it would be beholden to no one.
Once ICANN gains autonomy, it may choose to incorporate in any nation it chooses, where it is not subject to the U.S. justice system, and where these governments’ authorities would have some measure of influence in their decision-making. That would be devastating.
Compiled by Joseph Lawler from reports published by the various think tanks.
