Ronald Reagan once quipped “the nine most terrifying words in the English language are “I’m from the government and I’m here to help.”

Of course, there is definitely the need for a government to provide for a public good, which are products the private sector cannot produce efficiently. Even Adam Smith notes this in his book Wealth of Nations. A government lighthouse simply makes more sense than a user fee private lighthouse, because to pay for the beacon to be switched on, you’d have to sail right up to those dangerous rocks to make that deposit that the lighthouse is warning you to avoid!

But when a government corporation is created to duplicate what the market can provide, we get into a thornier issue. And it may be more than just higher taxes for public sector products. Online reader “Boss Tweed” graciously responded to my last column, pointing out “Lagrange College students are already the beneficiary of state tax and lottery revenues. Georgia taxpayers are subsidizing student tuition at LaGrange, and have been for years!”

But do students at public colleges get more HOPE Scholarship funds than those same deserving students attending private colleges receive? I’m not just talking about percentage of tuition or percentage of students taking aid. Of course, if parents had the ability to deduct private school tuition from their taxes, as I suggested, we probably wouldn’t need a HOPE Scholarship.

Boss Tweed also takes issue with my USPS argument. “The United States Postal Service receives zero US taxpayer support, and has not since the early 80’s.” He goes on to cite Slate Magazine, which states “The US Postal Service has been a self-supporting, government-owned agency since the passage of 1970’s Postal Reorganization Act. Direct public subsidies of USPS were phased out by 1982, and today’s USPS covers all its costs from postage and fees.”

He also notes “There is a regulatory panel that considers and approves all rate changes - but also enforces the notion that all addresses in the U.S., no matter how remotely situated, will be serviced. FedEx and private companies can pick and choose where they want to operate, which is obviously a much more profitable business model.”

Boss Tweed, is of course, correct. Though I did not directly state that your taxes fund the Post Office, I certainly implied it in my column, didn’t I? But there are plenty of ways that this public corporation can use the power of the government to get ahead of its private competitors.

As a recent Federal Trade Commission (FTC) study points out (and yes, that’s a government study) the Post Office receives immunity from state and local taxes (as well as some zoning ordinances, limits on lawsuits against government agencies, and the ability to borrow from federal funds. The Heartland Institute reports that these implicit subsidies run more than $100 million annually (critics of the FTC report claim that these subsides are much higher than this figure). And that doesn’t even cover what the Heartland Institute calls “the Mailbox Monopoly,” a 1934 “law that makes it a crime for anyone but a U.S. Postal Service carrier – not a private carrier such as a UPS driver, not even your next door neighbor – to use your mailbox, with or without your permission” (as cited in an American Enterprise Institute report).

Comedian Steven Wright once wryly observed “I think it’s wrong that only one company makes the game ‘Monopoly.’” If we have a free market system with a government that sticks to public goods, we should be OK as a country.