Some of us don't like the way the world is changing, such as downsizing the U.S. Postal Service (USPS).
Because of bill payment through the Internet and competition from private carriers, the USPS has been losing revenues. Critics charge the USPS with "inefficiency," insisting it take measures to cover costs. These measures would reduce services, and be counterproductive.
More pressure on the Postal Service is bad economic and social policy, amounting to economic and rural development in reverse.
The crux of this issue is failure to distinguish between private enterprise whose chief objective is profits, and a public enterprise whose objective is to provide service, and help the private sector to profit. Heavens! What a radical idea!
For starters, the charge of "inefficiency" is grossly unfair and egregiously misleading. Private carriers can "cherry pick" the high volume, low cost profitable routes. In contrast, the Postal Service delivers a letter from Florida to Point Barrow, Alaska, for 45 cents.
While it is admiral public policy to render equal service to small towns and sparsely populated rural areas, it's tough to cover costs when private sector enterprises skim the most profitable routes.
Let's take a look at some recent proposals for the USPS to cut costs (read services).
An earlier proposal would close some 3,830 local post offices, including the local Woodford office. Most of these closures would be in sparsely populated areas. Many of these crossroads towns, villages, and whistle stops have already lost their local schools. Their remaining source of identity is their local post offices.
Many of these mostly rural locations are characterized by aging populations, with poverty rates way above the national average. These areas often lack good Internet service, and even where present, have populations less inclined to use it. Closing these rural post offices would force many rural residents to drive great distances for service.
Post Office jobs, many of which are held by veterans, are a source of stable, middle class employment. Closing small town post offices would cost jobs in rural areas where few such jobs exist. It's tough enough to make a living and employ people in a small business, especially in a small town. Depriving small towns of their post offices would be another nail in the coffin of America's small towns, villages, and hamlets.
The plan to close these post offices has since been replaced with another that is little, if any, less devastating.
The new plan would affect more than 13,000 post offices. Options include replacing the post offices with "postal centers" located in private businesses, replacing a post office with rural delivery, or reducing service of existing post offices to two, four, or six hours per day, depending on revenues. Full-time career postmasters would be replaced by part-time workers at low wages at these post offices.
This plan is estimated to reduce total hours of the USPS by about 16 percent for a savings of $500 million per year, a small fraction of the $20 billion aimed for by 2015. But even the anticipated $500 million in savings is illusory. Most of the anticipated savings would be through reduction in service hours that would result in still more reduced revenues. This would cut into the anticipated savings, and place yet further pressure on the USPS to downsize and reduce services - accelerating the downward spiral.
The new plan would also close 140 service centers, including the Rockford, Ill. plant. Consolidating service centers is based on the shaky premise that fewer and larger is more efficient.
Controversy over the post offices is a prime example of conflicting public policy objectives - broad public service vs. financial efficiency, narrowly defined. Politicians protest post office closings in their areas while complaining of "inefficiency," insisting that this public enterprise cover all costs, just like a private enterprise.
The USPS would be experiencing a smaller loss, and may even be covering costs, if not mandated to pre-fund 75 years of retirement benefits in a 10-year period - a mandate imposed on no other public or private entity.
Postal workers confer many benefits not quantifiable in simple cost recovery calculations. In many rural areas, the local postman/woman on the street is an elderly resident's primary contact with the broader world.
The decline of the USPS would cut stable middle class jobs, especially in those areas that can least afford to lose these jobs. It would have a negative effect on rural America, small businessmen, the elderly, and the entire economy - economic and rural development in reverse.
The USPS hasn't received a dime in taxpayer funds for decades. Kicking in a few taxpayer dollars to help the USPS maintain service to all of America would make good capitalistic sense. We all want small business and small town America to do well, so let's give it a chance.
Maintaining low-cost postal service to every American across the country should be both a Democratic and Republican cause.
Republican politicians from red states who want to privatize everything from garbage collection to education to prisons - and even mail service? - surely must object to reducing postal services in their small towns across the plains. OK then, if you want good mail service to rural areas, get off your privatization high horse.
And Democratic politicians? It's another chance to stand up for their natural constituents - ordinary rural and small town Americans, and stable middle class jobs. And it would help if they could muster up enough persuasive power to convince the Tin Man in out of the rain.
So here is something for both Democratic and Republican politicians. But first, they have to recognize the difference between a private enterprise whose chief objective is profits, and a public enterprise whose objective is to provide service - including enhancing private sector efficiency in our nation's small towns, villages, and hamlets.
- John Waelti's column appears every Friday in the Times. He can be reached at jjwaelti1@tds.net.
Because of bill payment through the Internet and competition from private carriers, the USPS has been losing revenues. Critics charge the USPS with "inefficiency," insisting it take measures to cover costs. These measures would reduce services, and be counterproductive.
More pressure on the Postal Service is bad economic and social policy, amounting to economic and rural development in reverse.
The crux of this issue is failure to distinguish between private enterprise whose chief objective is profits, and a public enterprise whose objective is to provide service, and help the private sector to profit. Heavens! What a radical idea!
For starters, the charge of "inefficiency" is grossly unfair and egregiously misleading. Private carriers can "cherry pick" the high volume, low cost profitable routes. In contrast, the Postal Service delivers a letter from Florida to Point Barrow, Alaska, for 45 cents.
While it is admiral public policy to render equal service to small towns and sparsely populated rural areas, it's tough to cover costs when private sector enterprises skim the most profitable routes.
Let's take a look at some recent proposals for the USPS to cut costs (read services).
An earlier proposal would close some 3,830 local post offices, including the local Woodford office. Most of these closures would be in sparsely populated areas. Many of these crossroads towns, villages, and whistle stops have already lost their local schools. Their remaining source of identity is their local post offices.
Many of these mostly rural locations are characterized by aging populations, with poverty rates way above the national average. These areas often lack good Internet service, and even where present, have populations less inclined to use it. Closing these rural post offices would force many rural residents to drive great distances for service.
Post Office jobs, many of which are held by veterans, are a source of stable, middle class employment. Closing small town post offices would cost jobs in rural areas where few such jobs exist. It's tough enough to make a living and employ people in a small business, especially in a small town. Depriving small towns of their post offices would be another nail in the coffin of America's small towns, villages, and hamlets.
The plan to close these post offices has since been replaced with another that is little, if any, less devastating.
The new plan would affect more than 13,000 post offices. Options include replacing the post offices with "postal centers" located in private businesses, replacing a post office with rural delivery, or reducing service of existing post offices to two, four, or six hours per day, depending on revenues. Full-time career postmasters would be replaced by part-time workers at low wages at these post offices.
This plan is estimated to reduce total hours of the USPS by about 16 percent for a savings of $500 million per year, a small fraction of the $20 billion aimed for by 2015. But even the anticipated $500 million in savings is illusory. Most of the anticipated savings would be through reduction in service hours that would result in still more reduced revenues. This would cut into the anticipated savings, and place yet further pressure on the USPS to downsize and reduce services - accelerating the downward spiral.
The new plan would also close 140 service centers, including the Rockford, Ill. plant. Consolidating service centers is based on the shaky premise that fewer and larger is more efficient.
Controversy over the post offices is a prime example of conflicting public policy objectives - broad public service vs. financial efficiency, narrowly defined. Politicians protest post office closings in their areas while complaining of "inefficiency," insisting that this public enterprise cover all costs, just like a private enterprise.
The USPS would be experiencing a smaller loss, and may even be covering costs, if not mandated to pre-fund 75 years of retirement benefits in a 10-year period - a mandate imposed on no other public or private entity.
Postal workers confer many benefits not quantifiable in simple cost recovery calculations. In many rural areas, the local postman/woman on the street is an elderly resident's primary contact with the broader world.
The decline of the USPS would cut stable middle class jobs, especially in those areas that can least afford to lose these jobs. It would have a negative effect on rural America, small businessmen, the elderly, and the entire economy - economic and rural development in reverse.
The USPS hasn't received a dime in taxpayer funds for decades. Kicking in a few taxpayer dollars to help the USPS maintain service to all of America would make good capitalistic sense. We all want small business and small town America to do well, so let's give it a chance.
Maintaining low-cost postal service to every American across the country should be both a Democratic and Republican cause.
Republican politicians from red states who want to privatize everything from garbage collection to education to prisons - and even mail service? - surely must object to reducing postal services in their small towns across the plains. OK then, if you want good mail service to rural areas, get off your privatization high horse.
And Democratic politicians? It's another chance to stand up for their natural constituents - ordinary rural and small town Americans, and stable middle class jobs. And it would help if they could muster up enough persuasive power to convince the Tin Man in out of the rain.
So here is something for both Democratic and Republican politicians. But first, they have to recognize the difference between a private enterprise whose chief objective is profits, and a public enterprise whose objective is to provide service - including enhancing private sector efficiency in our nation's small towns, villages, and hamlets.
- John Waelti's column appears every Friday in the Times. He can be reached at jjwaelti1@tds.net.
