We can't afford to lose post offices
[Re: July 28 essay: "Slowing postal: Free Union and the place we won't let go"]:
The proposed elimination of hundreds of small post offices is a sad development. It is a loss of convenience and of a valuable social connection. This does not have to be.
The USPS has been in decline ever since it was legislated that it should pay its own way. An organization with the most employees next to Walmart and the largest vehicle fleet in the world just can't cover expenses by selling stamps. In a lame attempt to be fiscal, the price of stamps has relentlessly risen. Last quarter, the deficit was $3 billion.
Postal service should be a given in society like schools, fire protection, and roads. Can you imagine what the tolls would be on the interstates to cover their maintenance and construction?
We will pay billions this year for the military, yet we can not afford that friendly little post office that has been an intimate fixture for decades. Actually, we could afford it with an enlightened, flexible approach to the problem.
Jim Barns
Charlottesville
1 comment
Perhaps Jim will tell us the "enlightened, flexible, approach" which will resolve the problem. Looks like closing small post offices and raising the cost of postage are not part of the equation, and I doubt that postal workers will work for free, so I assume the approach has something to do with taxpayer money. So exactly, what, Jim, do you propose?