>It's sad but that's the state of affairs Congress has forced them into.

I'm not sure what's being asked here. So direct mail is a source of profits for the USPS that effectively subsidizes first class mail (and perhaps other things). Personally, I'd not be in favor of a sharp price increase to mail a letter as the price for getting rid of direct mail. (Which, in any case, covers a fairly wide spectrum of "junk" from stuff I throw away unopened to catalogs that I'll at least flip through to offers that I'll at least consider.)

Among unsolicited contacts, direct mail is pretty far down the list of things that annoy me.