Published: Friday, January 6, 2012
In our view / Postal Service cuts
Use delay to improve plan
Now that the U.S. Postal Service's proposed cuts and facility closings have been postponed until spring, and are being challenged by the Postal Regulatory Commission, perhaps some thoughtfulness can be included in the process.
Offering worse service to save an organization from bankruptcy is not good business.
The reasons that the U.S. Postal Service is in dire financial straits is not because people are not using the mail.
Over the holiday season, the postal service delivered about 16.5 billion pieces of mail. In 2010, such holiday mailings showed an increase of 40 percent over the previous year. The service sold about 2.5 billion holiday-themed Forever stamps over the season. Outside of the holidays, on an average day, the USPS deals with 551 million pieces of mail.
The postal service is quick to point out that the volume of mail has dropped about 20 percent over the past five years. (Except that 40 percent holiday increase...) But if the mail volume had remained the same would the postal service be self-supporting? No. And it's not even the point. Even if every American sent a first-class letter every day starting today, it wouldn't dent the $14.1 billion in operating losses expected this year. The sale of stamps and the shipping of boxes can't ever keep pace with funding pensions.
The postal service needs a better funding source, in addition to smarter cuts. (Congress nixed the service's reasonable idea to discontinue Saturday service.)
The Postal Service's plan would close more than half of the nation's 461 mail processing centers, including Everett's, which handles about 1 million letters and parcels daily. Next-day delivery would mostly disappear. (Is this like "We had to destroy the village in order to save it"?)
Postal officials said their best candidates for closure were rural post offices that take in less than $27,000 in revenue each year and suburban and urban ones with less than $500,000, the Washington Post reported.
That may help finances a bit (although postal officials didn't have concrete data on exactly how much it would help), but unfathomably would hurt those who rely on the U.S. mail the most.
Rural communities across the country are currently letting their local and federal officials know exactly how important their post offices are to their communities and economies, the New York Times reported. Low-income people in rural areas are, not surprisingly, the least likely people to have Internet access. With the cuts and closings as proposed, our postal service will become another example of the "haves and the have-nots" -- the opposite of the origins of our lovely, historic and democratic postal system.
Offering worse service to save an organization from bankruptcy is not good business.
The reasons that the U.S. Postal Service is in dire financial straits is not because people are not using the mail.
Over the holiday season, the postal service delivered about 16.5 billion pieces of mail. In 2010, such holiday mailings showed an increase of 40 percent over the previous year. The service sold about 2.5 billion holiday-themed Forever stamps over the season. Outside of the holidays, on an average day, the USPS deals with 551 million pieces of mail.
The postal service is quick to point out that the volume of mail has dropped about 20 percent over the past five years. (Except that 40 percent holiday increase...) But if the mail volume had remained the same would the postal service be self-supporting? No. And it's not even the point. Even if every American sent a first-class letter every day starting today, it wouldn't dent the $14.1 billion in operating losses expected this year. The sale of stamps and the shipping of boxes can't ever keep pace with funding pensions.
The postal service needs a better funding source, in addition to smarter cuts. (Congress nixed the service's reasonable idea to discontinue Saturday service.)
The Postal Service's plan would close more than half of the nation's 461 mail processing centers, including Everett's, which handles about 1 million letters and parcels daily. Next-day delivery would mostly disappear. (Is this like "We had to destroy the village in order to save it"?)
Postal officials said their best candidates for closure were rural post offices that take in less than $27,000 in revenue each year and suburban and urban ones with less than $500,000, the Washington Post reported.
That may help finances a bit (although postal officials didn't have concrete data on exactly how much it would help), but unfathomably would hurt those who rely on the U.S. mail the most.
Rural communities across the country are currently letting their local and federal officials know exactly how important their post offices are to their communities and economies, the New York Times reported. Low-income people in rural areas are, not surprisingly, the least likely people to have Internet access. With the cuts and closings as proposed, our postal service will become another example of the "haves and the have-nots" -- the opposite of the origins of our lovely, historic and democratic postal system.
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