| Unleash Prosperity Hotline Issue #362 09/02/2021 |
1) The Last Dinosaur The Postal Service is arguably the most anachronistic organization in America. We were reminded of this when USPS reported that the cost of a first class stamp is rising again, this time by 5.5% to 58 cents. In the 1960s the price of a first class stamp was a nickel. Every year fewer Americans use snail mail (young people don’t even know what a stamp is) and total first class mail volume is down by half in the last 20 years (see graph). Email is, of course, free and instantaneous. Yet, incredibly, USPS still has nearly 500,000 employees. The day can’t be too far off when there are more Postal Service workers than letters mailed. Will someone please tell Congress that we are living in 2021 (not 1921). The days of the Pony Express are over. Free the mail. Privatize the Postal Service.  |
| 2) School Choice Can Solve Mask Fight Now that the government schools ARE finally reopening, the mask mandate fight is being fought in local school districts between parents, health officials, and educators. As we reported yesterday, the United States is an extreme outlier on this issue. We think the data is clear that student masking confers no statistically significant benefit that would justify its disruption to normal school life for kids. But feelings are deep enough on both sides of the issue to create headaches for every school administrator in America. So why not let parents choose between schools with the mask policies they prefer? (For that matter, why not let them choose any school that best suits the needs of their kids, period?) The polling data supports this policy. Corey DeAngelis, the national director of research at the American Federation for Children, reports: “A nationwide poll by Echelon Insights in August found that 79% of respondents with an opinion support allowing families to take their children’s taxpayer-provided education money to a private or home school if their public school doesn’t mandate masks. Surprisingly, Democrats favored this school-choice proposal more than Republicans, with support at 82% and 78%, respectively.” https://www.wsj.com/articles/mask-mandates-democrat-support-school-choice-covid-19-vouchers-charters-coronavirus-11630427173 |
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