In which I complain about the post office AGAIN

I tried to send a letter to my mom the other day, an article I thought she'd like to read. I folded it carefully, put it in an envelope, stuck a stamp on it, and went on to the beach for a couple days. Upon returning, I noticed that the letter was still in the mailbox, unsent, only this time with "1 cent needed" written on it. HUH? My first instinct was that the mail carrier had made a mistake. I just bought those stamps a couple months ago, when we finally used the rest of the 40-cent stamps from before the last piddly increase. So I looked it up online and lo! Stamps had indeed gone up again. Another measly penny, AGAIN. As if I needed another reason to hate the post office. I have a roll of perfectly lovely 41-cent flower stamps! Now I have to schlep to the post office and buy 1-cent stamps for the privilege of sending a letter that may or may not arrive at its final destination? Riddle me this: Why can't they just raise mail rates to 50 cents and leave it for a couple years? Is that really asking too much? Is it?