Post Office Poitics

The post office is one of the oldest businesses in America. When we were little was there anything better than getting the mail, and if we were lucky on any given day getting a letter addressed to us. I still remember the thrill. I used to pick up the mail when I got off the bus each day and I actually have dreams still about going to the mailbox and having it full of all the things one might get in the mail. At various times in my youth this might be records, tapes, magazines, and baseball cards.

The post office is in trouble. Email and E commerce has certainly hurt their business. The truth is however that the sheer number of mail has not shrunk dramatically. The post office has a target on its back. One of the major reasons, poltical reasons, is that the post office employees are unionized and we all know that one of the major Republican plans is to gut any organization that has a strong union populace.

For some reason five years ago the Congress passed a law that said that the post office had to prefund their pension and health care costs, unlike no other business. This amounts to something like 5 billion a year off the top of revenue. This is without doubt a competitive disadvantage that they should not have.

I am all in favor of pension and benefit security but clearly this is politically motivated. We should as a populace be concerned. Already talk of slower mail delivery, reduced Saturday delivery and other options are on the table.

Post office consolidation will affect many small towns and rural areas. The post office is a way of life. As has been shown there are many services the post office could provide to make them more competitive and more of a center of activity.

It seems like we are so busy being modern we are not understanding the complete implications of not supporting this vital part of past and what should be our future.