Hell Bent to Kill a 239-Year Old Institution: the Post Office

On July 26, 1775 Congress established the U.S. Post office. Benjamin Franklin was the first United States postmaster general.  One mission of the new post office was to promote an informed citizenry.  To that end Congress allowed newspaper printers to send each other newspapers for free, facilitating the flow of information from national and international sources to rural villages.

Today the Postal Service is well on its way to privatizing itself.  In our city and at many of their franchise locations, Staples office supply stores have a new service; the U.S. Postal Service has set up satellite counters and mail is collected right there.  Outsourcing mail to Staples Corporation an office supply store?  That’s right.  The U.S. government is claiming that the Post Office is not viable because of its considerable debt.  This is a debt manufactured by Congress by requiring the Post Office to pre-pay by 75 years its pension obligations to postal workers.  From the beginning the Post Office was not meant to provide a profit. No more than we expect the military, the Coast Guard, the Fire Department and other vital government services both national and local.

The drive to privatize the postal service has many negative consequences. There will be no FBI background checks for employees handling the mail.  No training.  No oversight and no familiar postal delivery employees.  Will the mail carriers be next?  That would be really inconvenient for a vast number of people to access their mail.  We need to keep their eyes in our neighborhood looking out for unusual, maybe criminal activity. Please call and email your member of Congress to stop closing post offices.  Many post office buildings are national treasures in architecture and artworks dating back to the 1930’s.

– Denise D’Anne