Brawner: Congress Must Let Post Office Change
by November 17, 2011 9:24 am 62 views
Arkansas News Bureau columnist Steve Brawner examines the heated political debate over rural post office closings and other diminishing services as the U.S. Postal Service tries to close a $10 billion deficit.
Talk Business reported on this story last week when Rep. Mike Ross (D) and Rick Crawford (R) both made efforts to stem the USPS cutbacks. Others followed suit.
Says Brawner:
Members of Arkansas’ congressional delegation are trying to do their jobs, but they and the rest of Congress are making it harder for Postal Service officials to do theirs.
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Arkansas is a rural state, so its understandable that our representatives are opposing the closures. They have a responsibility to at least ask if other cost-cutting measures can be tried. Some senior citizens receive their prescriptions and Social Security checks by mail, including on Saturdays. Crawford says that closing rural post offices would save only $200 million per year, a fraction of what is needed.But you can’t cut government spending without actually cutting government spending, and if the post office can’t pay its bills, then it will have to be bailed out by the taxpayers. (Well, future ones because we’re not paying our bills now). If the country is unwilling to make even these minor cost-saving measures during an era of annual $1.3 trillion budget deficits, how will it address the massive shortfalls that will occur in Medicare and Social Security as the baby boomers retire? This seems doable by comparison.
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Driving nine or 10 miles to get to a post office — that seems a reasonable tradeoff for the benefits of country living. Ending Saturday delivery — that seems a reasonable tradeoff to help keep the post office from going broke at a time when the federal government is already broke.People make choices about where they live and how they navigate their lives. Congress should let the Postal Service make choices as well, like any business would when times change and it starts losing money.
Read Brawner’s full column here.