Opinion: The Government Isn't a Fair Competitor for the Private Sector

An article appeared recently in my local newspaper that I enjoyed. (Note that this is a rare occurrence, an interesting article in my local paper.)

Government's duplication of and competition with the private sector has been a public policy issue for years. Unfortunately, government is encroaching in new, more aggressive and troubling ways.

Forays into private enterprise by government entities in the past decade have eroded a federal policy dating to the 1950s which states, "The federal government will not start or carry on any commercial activity to provide a service or product for its own use if such product or service can be procured from private enterprise through ordinary business channels."
That common-sense policy keeps getting changed. Just ask the U. S. Postal Service. 

As email and online services have diminished the volume and significance of the U.S. Mail, the embattled postal service has gone on the offensive to gain customers. Of particular interest to us, some of those efforts involve winning customers away from newspapers.
For example: In a small eastern Iowa town, the local grocery store discontinued distribution of its advertising inserts through the newspaper so it could use a new program that the U.S. Postal Service is pushing, Every Door Direct Mail. In the same town, the postmaster convinced the chamber of commerce to use the mail instead of the newspaper to distribute its annual member directory.
The promotion is a full-on, aggressive sales pitch competing with private enterprise. A postmaster in Missouri told a newspaper publisher that he had been told by his superiors that he had to go see businesses in person to push the direct-mail option.
No word yet whether the U.S. Postal Service, which is losing an estimated $25 million per day, plans to report and distribute the city council summary, obituaries and Little League scores once it puts the small-town newspaper out of business. 

Newspapers aren't afraid of competition -- but it should be fair competition. We have plenty of it in the marketplace, and we're accustomed to working for our customers' business. But must newspapers -- or any other private, taxpaying entity, for that matter -- compete with federal, state and local governments, which in many aspects enjoy legally established monopolies over the private sector? Must we compete with an entity that loses money year after year but is kept afloat by public dollars?
Yes, to some extent, government has long competed with the private sector, from the placards on and inside city buses to soft-drink logos affixed to scoreboards in sports venues. But what once was fairly passive marketing has turned aggressive, where government is trying to take business revenue away from taxpaying private enterprise.
Newspapers aren't alone in the battle. The state of Iowa wants more money in its transportation department coffers. What's the solution? Sell advertising sponsors for its 40 interstate rest stops. That was the news out of Des Moines last week. Naming rights and sponsorships are becoming a popular funding source for government. 

It is a troubling trend that government is putting itself into competition with the private sector when it should be working harder to become more efficient and operate within its means.

There was also a comment on the piece that I liked:

Now let's look into the federal government's granting of a monopoly on currency through the private bank called the Federal Reserve. 

Let's look at the federal government's monopoly of AMTRAK and the lock and dam system and the interstate highway system.
Let's also look at ALL government subsidies or tax credits for businesses and certain commodities like corn, soybeans, sugar and tobacco.
Let's end ALL federal government involvement in picking winners and losers including bailouts of banks, car companies, and home owners. 

Let's look into economic freedom throughout the market and get government out of the way.

And it's true, its hard for a company to compete with the leaders of the free world. And its the Governments job to allow people to flourish within legal means, and make a living by creating companies to sove problems. When the Government decides they are going to enter a business, it is very hard to compete with them, or come up with a logical reason for them to be in that business in the first place.