Just for clarification - When you say that "a bunch of lobbyists... fight raising the rates", I'm sure you realize that it is the direct marketing industry that is fighting them.

You say: "I think people should have to pay a penny to send email. I think the Post Office should have gotten into the Email business on the ground floor." I disagree. By this time we would be paying a dollar for each email. Or maybe they would be charging per word. For something sent through the air that costs them nothing. We buy the machines that send the messages. We pay the costs of internet hookups. We provide the bodies who perform the actions. Why should the Post Office profit? Why not the Utility companies? Why not your local Congressperson?

"90% of email is now spam." Not in my house. Source, please.

This sounds very impressive, but I really would like to see the source: The annual energy used to transmit, process and filter spam e-mails results in the same amount of greenhouse gas emissions as 3.1 million passenger cars using 2 billion gallons of gasoline. The annual energy used globally for spam totals 33 terawatt hours (TWh)--enough energy to power 2.4 million homes each year."