 shocker of the year stamp prices rising this has happened since when last year fighting to survive a deepening financial crisis the postal service said tuesday it wants to increase the price of firstclass stamps by 2 cents mdash to 46 cents mdash starting in january other postage costs would rise as well the agency s persisting problem everdeclining mail volume as people and businesses shift to the internet and the declining economy reduces advertising mail so government s response to fewer customers is to raise prices there s some sound economic policy let s pretend we re a business owner and our widget x isn t selling well and we ve got lots of stock filling our warehouse what should be done raise prices or lower prices if you said raise prices consider yourself a business dunce or a liberal same thing the postal service faces a serious risk of financial insolvency postal vice president stephen kearney said an indication that without significant changes a time could come when the agency would be unable to pay its bills then let the usps die times change hey our freedoms are dying under obama s reign what s the big deal with killing off the post office something else will rise to take it s place it s the nature of businesses that aren t governmentsponsored monopolies officials also said they plan a new design for forever stamps which currently have am image of the liberty bell new forever stamps will have images of evergreen trees all forever stamps would remain valid that s appropriate replace the symbol of liberty and democracy with the symbol of the environmental movement whose policies require the destruction of our liberty so why the need for a price increase we have the usual excuse of economic downturn get used to it in obama s america but we also have this the postal inspector general also contends that the postal service has been overcharged billions of dollars for retirement benefits for employees who worked for the former post office department before it was converted to the postal service in 1970 kind of sounds like another obamaowned business general motors doesn t it  