Save The Post Office

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The United States Postal Service is implementing cost cutting measures while on the verge of running out of money. 

Due to budget cuts, the South Texas town of Cedar Lake, population 683, could soon lose its post office. Every year, Cedar Lake resident Bobbie Johnson estimates about 20,000 pieces of mail are routed through the small towns mailing office. According to data presented by the U.S. Postal Service, some 3,700 small town post offices made the list of those that could potentially be closed as the U.S. Postal Service tightens its reigns. Johnson says if the post office in her small town closes, the nearest branch would be more than 35 miles away. According to a U.S. Postal Service spokesman, these closures and other cost cutting measures could save the federal government money.

The possibility of a collapse of the U.S. Postal Service has put the longtime service on the verge of default. The lead Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe warned that without immediate assistance from Congress, “the USPS could default on its payment and be out of money by next year, forcing it to shut down all operations.”

The 238-year-old institution has recently been buckling under the pressure of massive payments for future retiree benefits and dwindling revenue as more Americans communicate by email. Last year, the USPS reported $16 billion in revenue loss. The service is in need of rapid and drastic restructuring to remain financially viable in the future.  

The proposed USPS cuts are big. Donahoe presented a number of measures that he argues would halt the USPS’s rapid financial decline, including the elimination of the annual pre-fund payment requirement, stopping Saturday mail delivery and terminating a “no-layoff” clause in a contract with unionized postal workers.

According to Donahoe, “cutting service down to five days a week instead of six, is a proposal that has been kicked around for years, and would save about $3 billion a year.”          

 Donahoe has also urged Congress to allow him to shut down standalone post offices, moving them into convenience stores and supermarkets instead.

These proposals have been met with resistance, not least by postal workers who stand to lose their jobs but by USPS customers as well.

Johnson and other mail service customers are outraged at the actions the USPS plan to take.    “Congress needs to leave Saturday delivery and the USPS alone,” Johnson said. “This is just another way to force the post office to be doomed so that it can become someone's private profit.”

Not all postal service customers are in opposition to the proposed budget cuts.

Postal customer Brian Fontenot said “the biggest problems the post office faces are obvious; they refuse to adapt to the digital age which means less paper mail moving.”

Fontenot feels these cost cutting measures and no mail delivery on Saturday would be great strides towards modernization for the USPS.

Mail carrier Kiah Williams is worried that the budget cuts will affect her employment.

“It is not about having Saturday’s off,” Williams said, “but being able to make money; a change in the delivery schedule could put me out of work.”

            The USPS is not technically “broke” — yet.   
     The USPS brings in profits every year. The financial problem it faces now comes from a 2006 Congressional mandate that requires the agency to pre-pay into a fund that covers health care costs for future retired employees. Under the mandate, the USPS is required to make an annual $5.5 billion payment over ten years, through 2016.  

            Revenue has also been declining for years, and the postal service does not rely on taxpayer funds. Until 1971, mail delivery was handled by the Post Office Department, a Cabinet department in the federal government. Postal worker strikes prompted President Nixon to pass the Postal Reorganization Act in 1971, transforming it into the semi-independent agency we now know as the United States Postal Service. The USPS has not used taxpayer money since 1982, when postage stamps became products instead of forms of taxation. Taxpayer money is only used in some cases to pay for mailing voter materials to disabled and overseas Americans.

            USPS spokespersons have been adamant in emphasizing that they are not requesting taxpayer funds from the federal government to make this year’s payment. Rather, they say, the USPS is asking Congress to authorize access to an estimated $7 billion that they overpaid into the future retiree pension fund in previous years.

            “The Postal Service is advancing an important new approach to delivery that reflects the strong growth of our package business and responds to the financial realities resulting from America’s changing mailing habits,” Donahoe said in a statement. “We developed this approach by working with our customers to understand their delivery needs and by identifying creative ways to generate significant cost savings.”

            The USPS has been the topic of much debate over the past couple of years as it reviews its options now that the digital world has seemingly rendered mail service near-obsolete. Though widespread email use has all but eliminated the need to send letters and many people are going paperless in an effort to be green, a lot of people still rely on the post office to deliver bills–especially those who don’t want to give out their banking information online–and package delivery is always a concern.

            In an attempt to make things easier for its customers, the Postal Service has even introduced a new service for packages recently that includes giving the customer the ability to pay for and print their own shipping labels at home, then schedule a pick-up using one of the service’s flat-rate boxes. But the agency says it will continue to make packages a priority even as it prepares to end Saturday mail service, scheduled to begin this summer.