The Free Press, Mankato, MN

Editorials

Related Photos

  • 28ed8-2a.jpg

    28ed8-2a.jpg

August 1, 2011

Our View: The stamp of trouble at post office

The Free Press

The North Mankato Post Office is again in line for potential closing and the United States Postal Service will no doubt again hear complaints from many as it takes public comments. The office was studied for closure a few years ago, but spared.

No community wants to lose its Post Office, for obvious reasons. They have always been a basic fixture in any community and a convenience for anyone needing stamps or mailing a package.

The North Mankato office, and others around the country that are being eyed, will undoubtedly be under more intense scrutiny for closure this time around.

The USPS is on track to lose $8.3 billion in fiscal 2011. As digital communications and competition increase, the USPS is scrambling to cut costs and develop new products and services.

Contrary to common perception, the USPS receives virtually no direct government funding. Since a reorganization in 1971 that made it an independent government agency, the USPS has been self-sufficient. (It gets a relatively small — $96 million a year — amount from Congress annually to cover  postage-free mailing for the blind and disabled and for absentee ballots sent from U.S. citizens living overseas.)

Still, as the USPS bleeds money, the likelihood of a government bailout increases, making its attempts to reorganize more important to American taxpayers.

The chairman of the commission that regulates the Postal Service said last week she supports a taxpayer subsidy for the agency as it tries to cut costs and reorganize.

Several bills are pending that would give the USPS more leeway in cutting costs, such as abandoning six-day delivery, making it easier to close facilities and switching from door-to-door delivery to curbside delivery (the last would save $4.5 billion a year alone). Switching to centralized delivery, where mail is delivered to one set of boxes for a large number of customers, would save an additional $5.1 billion a year.

While the Postal Service has long struggled with declining revenue, it has not in recent years closed a lot of facilities.

Part of that reluctance has been because of public and political pressure.

We don’t know what the Postal Service’s cost analysis of the North Mankato office will show, but the public reaction is likely to be strong to keep it open.

Which raises an issue that is at the root of much of the deficit spending done by government: People call for spending reductions and more efficiency, but often rail against it when it affects services they use or like.

It will be difficult, if not impossible, for Congress and the states to get control of spending until that changes.

Text Only | Photo Reprints
Editorials