Big business is sending a missive and urgently hoping that Americans respond. Addressed to Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians, Tea Partiers, Occupiers, and any other political recipient imaginable, the message is simple: Citizens do not need a post office.

This epistle has been repeatedly dispatched for years. We must reduce delivery from six days to five. We must close designated offices. We must deter impending bankruptcy.

Despite such looming financial disaster, we are also informed that the post office is the government’s only “self-sufficient” government agency. Perhaps this is the problem. Of all extant services, the post office is one of the few which government ought to be funding.

Government long ago abrogated legitimate public enterprise to fund an endless variety of personal concerns. However much one complains (and many do), the post office serves the vast majority of citizens. All you need is an address. If you don’t have one, your local branch will rent one for a nominal fee. Everyone is represented if they want to be.

It’s not so with several other programs. Quite a few government services benefit only statistically infinitesimal groups. Rather than cancel postage for all, why not curtail any of the following for some?

Crack-baby care. If one wants to hold them, fine. If one needs rock them, charming. If one seeks them to suckle at your teat, cheers. Yet I see nothing but an exceedingly poor social investment. Disagree? Prove me wrong. Find funding elsewhere.

Methamphetamine addicts. Actually, any addicts. I don’t care what one puts in their bodies, but neither do I care whether they recover. I don’t know them, so why should I? Moreover, why must I pay their treatment costs? They can have my sympathy, but not my money. Detox on your own.

Monuments to September 11. We already have one—it’s called Ground Zero. Official remembrances at the actual attack locations are legitimate. Constructing monuments in every other village, hamlet, borough, town, and city in America is a waste. If you want to commune on that terrible day, so be it. But if you live in Des Moines, purchase a ticket eastward.

Welfare. All of it. (Dickensian workhouses optional.) During the Depression an older acquaintance of mine with five children lost his job. How did he survive? He got three more part-time jobs. No one is starving or can starve in America if they do not wish to do so. Look at the waistline of your nearest illegal Mexican for proof.