Not surprisingly, the U.S. Postal Service, reorganized in 1983 into its present incarnation as an independent agency, is in a new financial bind and needs congressional approval to impose austere measures. Washington, however, must resist remedies that cripple a national treasure.
The Postal Service can never be operated as a self-sustaining business if it's to preserve its basic social functions.
No other civilian public service is as revered or vital or as ubiquitous in national life. Its origin dates back to 1775 and the founding of the United States. Letter services followed the westward frontier expansion with the Pony Express, and by 1896, Rural Free Delivery (RFD) extended to even the most remote farms. Mail has followed U.S. troops into battle.
An 8-by-8-foot shack on Florida's east-west Tamaki Trail in the Everglades at a spot in the road known as Ochopee is the nation's smallest post office, serving Seminole and Miccosukee tribes. Mail in some places is delivered by boat and horseback.
Stamp collecting is a major cultural hobby. Among notable collectors: President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Air mail came along in 1918.
Although not an official motto, the inscription on the James Farley Post Office in New York City—"Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds"—has served as a testament to the indispensable, historic role of the Postal Service.
The USPS is the only agency that maintains the most complete list of nationwide business and residential addresses (150 million), a large fleet of vehicles (218,000) and a huge work force (596,000) that in a true national security crisis could serve as a last-resort system for communications, evacuation and delivery of supplies.
The Postal Service's financial problems are simple: It competes against private package-delivery services and Internet e-mail that aren't required, as the Postal Service is, to maintain non-profitable services.
USPS's main competitors, FedEx and UPS, for example, don't deliver postcards and so-called junk mail. Instead, they concentrate on profitable package business. USPS also is required and expected by the public to maintain nearly 40,000 convenient post office locations and hours not required of FedEx and UPS.
Automation, competitive package delivery service, higher postage rates and workforce reductions still don't overcome budget losses. More tinkering is inevitable.
Drastic budget cuts designed to make the USPS just another profit-and-loss business, however, would cut the guts out of an essential national service and in the long run cripple an institution that has served Americans nobly and ably for 235 years.
