Stamps for $1? Sure I’m in.

by CU Soapbox

by. Ron Daly

What can you really buy for a dollar these days?

I did an informal survey (which is to say, I looked at the prices of a few things I buy from day to day), and you’d be surprised how far a dollar goes…or doesn’t go.

I can buy:

  • A can of soda, or
  • A trip down the express lanes from my home to my office, or
  • A copy of the paper, or
  • An older song on iTunes (the newer ones are more than a buck), or
  • Something from the dollar menu at McDonald’s, assuming I can scrounge up a dime for the taxes.

There aren’t a lot of things that cost one thin dollar. There are even fewer things that cost under a dollar. Everything’s “99¢”, the biggest double-whammy ever pulled in advertising. “Hey, it’s pennies a day!” Yes, 99 of them.

I rarely suggest that things that are cheaper than a dollar should cost a dollar, but do you want to know one thing I think is worth a buck? A postage stamp.

Think about it. What should it cost to send a letter or a card or even a small package all the way across the country, or around the corner? If you wanted to send that stuff privately (via UPS or FedEx), it would cost more than a dollar. The Post Office does a good job of moving thousands of millions of letters and bills and papers and packages all over the country. But they’re hurting and they’ve lost quite a bit of money in the past few years (all well documented here). They want to increase stamp prices again, to $0.49, a move that has some businesses and “concerned citizens” up in arms. “Outrageous!” they cry. “Stamps need to be affordable!”

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