November 24, 2014
Sovereign Valley Farm, Chile
Gallup recently conducted a poll asking Americans to rate thirteen of the most visible agencies/quasi-agencies of the United States government.
These included:
- US Postal Service (USPS)
- Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)
- Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)
- Department of Homeland Security (DHS)
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
- Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)
- Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
- Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
- Secret Service
- Internal Revenue Service (IRS)
- Federal Reserve Board
- Veterans Administration (VA)
[Curiously the Social Security Administration wasn’t on the list.]
Gallup asked the survey participants to rate each one of the agencies as excellent, good, fair, or poor.
Now, you can probably imagine that few people are going to rate the IRS particularly highly. But of the 1,020 random adults who participated, the most favorably viewed agency was…
The United States Postal Service.
Think about that for a moment.
The USPS’s own balance sheet shows a negative equity of MINUS $44 billion.
They lost $2 billion in the last quarter alone, their net loss so far this fiscal year is a whopping $4.1 billion, and they continually suck taxpayer funds into a never-ending black hole.
In fact, the United States Postal Service ranked dead last in terms of potential revenue growth when compared to 24 other postal agencies around the world according to a study published by global consulting group Accenture.
And according to the American Customer Satisfaction Index, Americans find banks, utility companies, and even some airlines to be easier to deal with than the US Postal Service.
And yet, despite all of this, Americans still prefer the US Postal Service to nearly every other government agency.
This pretty much tells you everything you need to know about government.
