Suffice to say that this important bill may be the last, best hope for reforming the Postal Service before taxpayers are handed the bill for its impending fiscal Armageddon.

At this event, AEI visiting scholar R. Richard Geddes, who urged for postal reform in his 2003 AEI Press book "Saving the Mail," will present an updated policy paper that assesses the USPS’s current situation and argues for long-term, concrete reform.

Given the Postal Service's fiscal crisis, and the need to adjust to market realities, it is time to put the Service on a course toward meaningful structural change that will give it the ability to adjust to demand for its core activity of delivering physical mail.

The Postal Service needs to be converted into a regular business, facing market competition and disciplined by active, focused shareholders. It must be permitted to reduce its high and rigid costs, and to adjust to the realities of a new communications marketplace. This should be done through de-monopolization, corporatization, and eventual privatization, as has been done in many other countries.

The U.S. Postal Service serves as an example of where advocates of big government will take this country, and if tea party activists want to fix the country, they should start by privatizing the Postal Service.

Earlier this year, President George W. Bush established the President’s Commission on the United States Postal Service (USPS), which issued its final report and recommendations in August. In an effort to educate and invigorate public discussion on postal reform sparked by the commission, AEI has held a series of...

The postal reform bills in the House and Senate are disappointing in light of the reforms carried out in other developed countries, including privatization and complete de-monopolization.