In a free market, private businesses succeed or fail based on their ability to provide goods and services at prices that consumers are willing to pay. That rewards companies that meet consumer demand and encourages competitors to find ways to provide goods and services more efficiently, to attract customers.
But what about the U.S. Postal Service? Its functions are provided for by the Constitution. But it's neither entirely a government agency, in the usual sense, nor really a private business. Some call it a "quasi-government" agency.
That makes it a bit tougher to know what to do about the fact that the Postal Service is suffering massive losses -- including about $8 billion last year.
Should taxpayers have to pony up the money to put the Postal Service in the black? Should the mail run on fewer days per week? Should stamp prices increase again?
Those are debatable points, but the Postal Service has chosen to deal with its huge budget shortfall in part by closing up to 3,700 post offices around the country.
We can understand why the Postal Service would consider doing that. The overwhelming majority of the offices slated for closing are taking in less than $28,000 per year and have only about two hours of work to do per day. It's not justified to keep such facilities operating at great expense.
Three Chattanooga post offices -- on 40th Street, on Amnicola Highway and on Hawthorne Street -- are among those targeted, as is a downtown post office in nearby Cleveland.
U.S. Sen. Bob Corker of Chattanooga was in Cleveland recently for a meeting with business leaders, and he regretfully but clearly said he could not intervene to try to keep open the Cleveland post office that is now expected to close.
"Every time a tough decision has to be made, I can't be calling up and asking that the decision be reversed," he said, adding that Congress cannot stand in the way of government efficiency.
That is the right approach. Much federal government waste is the result of lawmakers' insistence that cuts happen "somewhere else" but "not in my backyard."
It is encouraging that Corker recognizes that getting government operating more efficiently is going to require sacrifices not just somewhere else, but here, too.