An Easy Task for Congress: Save the Post Office

[xchrom]

http://www.thenation.com/blog/171301/easy-task-congress-save-post-office

The U.S. Postal Service is in the midst of a manufactured crisis. It is supposedly broke and headled toward a sort of fiscal cliff of its own. If it goes over, the likely result is privatization of its profitable enterprises and elimination of the commitment to universal service that has been its promise since the founding of the republic.

But that does not have to happen.

Congress undermined the financial stability of the postal service during a lame-duck session during a lame-duck session six years ago.

It can repair the damage done during this session.

[athena]

1. We can't afford to lose the USPS.

People like to complain about the USPS, but it's when you spend time in other countries that you realize how good the USPS really is. When I lived in Switzerland, I couldn't rely on mail reaching its destination. Whenever I had to send something important, I had to use registered mail. To simply send a check to the U.S., I would end up paying more than $8.

I would order books from Amazon.fr, and then get an e-mail from Amazon a few days later saying that the package had been returned. I suppose, since my name looked foreign, the postal service worker assumed that someone with my name could not possibly live in downtown Geneva. This happened exactly three times; the last time was near the end of my three-year stay there, by which time the postal worker should have learned my name. One time, a set of checkbooks my bank had sent me was returned, and I had to call the bank and explain the situation so that they would send the package again (which was finally delivered the second time).

And this was in Switzerland. I once went to a post office in Italy to send a postcard and was told that the post office did not deal with mail and that I should go to a "tobacco shop" to buy a stamp, and then put the postcard in a mailbox.

If we allow the USPS to be privatized, we will no longer be able to rely on mail reaching its destination without paying exorbitant rates.

[marmar]

2. k/r

[WinkyDink]

3. THANK YOU! (*Cue the e-mailers-who-don't-get -that-many-people-don't-have-computers crowd.*)