A task force established by the Trump administration to evaluate the USPS recommended that Congress consider making the USPS a private firm, although the Postal Rate Commission might keep the authority to regulate the prices the new firm would charge. The administration noted that the “USPS is caught between a mandate to operate like a business but with the expenses
and the political oversight of a public agency.”
a. Suppose that Congress allowed the USPS to retain its monopoly on deliveries to residential mailboxes but also allowed it to operate as a private business without needing to have its prices approved by the Postal Rate Commission and without having to meet the universal service obligation that Congress requires of it. What changes might the USPS make in how it operates?
b. Who might gain and who might lose if Congress ended the USPS’s monopoly on deliveries to residential mailboxes and made the USPS a private firm, entirely free from government regulation?