You’ve Got Less Mail

The United States Postal Service recently announced its plan to cut Saturday mail delivery in the face of growing deficits and decreasing mail volume. The cuts have widespread public support from 71 percent of Americans, including majorities of both political parties, even though the projected job losses are undesirable for a country just exiting a major recession. Simultaneously, the reiteration of the USPS’s financial woes has prompted some calls for the agency to fully privatize. We support the Saturday service cuts as an unpleasant but necessary money-saving measure; however, we reject any calls for the Postal Service to privatize, either now or in the future.

It is true that the USPS right now spends more money than it earns. It predicts an operating loss between six and 12 billion dollars this year. But to presume that our nation’s postal service must take in more money than it spends is to treat it like a privately owned delivery company when, in reality, the USPS is a social service. Indeed, postal service is one of the fundamental functions of our government. The Constitution specifically grants Congress the power to “establish Post Offices and Post Roads” in between the powers to coin money and establish federal courts—all key components of our national unity. We are proud to have a government and a Constitution that take on this responsibility rather than leave communication throughout our nation up to a private entity.

Furthermore, the USPS has offices in small towns throughout the country, which serve as entrances of disparate government services into more isolated regions. It is impractical to assume that private delivery services such as FedEx and UPS would establish offices everywhere that the USPS currently serves. Even if they did, such offices would be mere retail outlets; they would not contribute to national unity the way USPS offices currently do. Finally, privatization and the likely concomitant rise in prices and fall in locations would hurt those who are already disadvantaged the most, such as people without phone or Internet services, or those who are unable to use such technologies.

However, mail volume is decreasing and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. Although privatization is not the remedy to this problem, it is appropriate for the USPS to scale back rather than to build up debt with unnecessary services and then to need to make massive cuts in the future. Furthermore, because the job losses due to cutting service on Saturdays will occur primarily through attrition via retirement and early retirement packages, they will not do the economy too great a disservice. Thus, the Postal Service should continue ahead with its well-researched plan to cut costs but should retain its privileged public position in the years to come.