ee that a robust postal system was crucial to facilitating communication and coordinating their wartime efforts. Postal workers were even exempted from military service. In 1778, the Founding Fathers wrote into the Articles of Confederation a clause granting the United States Congress the “sole and exclusive right and power of . . . establishing and regulating post offices from one state to another, throughout all the United States.” The clause also empowered the post offices to charge postage “to defray the costs” of running the system.
Over the next few years, the value of the postal system to the young democracy became even more apparent. The Post Office truly was "binding the country together." The Post Office helped elected representatives and their constituents keep in contact, and through its distribution of newspapers, it enabled Americans to stay informed about political issues. Delivering newspapers was so important, in fact, that James Madison and Thomas Jefferson advocated reduced rates or even free delivery. Madison also believed that “by providing the citizenry with the means to monitor its elected representatives, the postal system could help to check the abuse of power” (Christopher Shaw, Preserving the People's Post Office).
In 1789, the “postal clause” of the U.S. Constitution — Article 1, section 8 — gave the Congress power over the Post Office. The passage states that the Congress “shall have the power . . . to establish Post Offices and Post Roads.” The clause was a subject of controversy from the very beginning, and three years later, when Congress debated the Post Office Act of 1792, it was about whether or not Congress could and should delegate to the postmaster general its power to establish post offices and post roads. The Senate wanted to give that role to the postmaster general, but the House said no, the Congress should retain its power.
August 28, 2011
“The Postal Service has been faced with critical financial problems in recent years.” In the last fiscal year, “Postal Service expenses exceeded revenues” by billions of dollars. “Although postage rates have increased significantly, labor and fuel costs have risen even faster. . . Rising payroll costs have been primarily responsible for this situation.”
“Because of such serious financial problems and the need to economize wherever possible,” the General Accounting Office (GAO) has conducted a review “to reassess the pros and cons of closing small post offices.” The Postal Service has also said “that it would be helpful if the [Postal Reorganization] act were amended to specifically authorize the Service to close small offices if the alternative mail service would be at least as good.”
Sound familiar? It should. It’s about all we’ve been hearing for the past few months, and it’s become the mantra of the Postmaster General, the USPS managers trying to explain to communities why their post office is going to close, and legislators looking to make it easier to close post offices.
The thing is, all those quotations are not from today’s news. They come from a GAO report prepared by the Comptroller General in the year 1975.
The urgent push to close post offices to prevent the Postal Service from going bankrupt is nothing new. The Postal Service is simply using the latest deficit “crisis” — an accounting problem caused primarily by the over-funding of retirement benefits and a slump in commercial mail caused by the recession — to do something some people have wanted to do for decades.
The 1975 report is called “$100 Million Could Be Saved Annually In Postal Operations In Rural America Without Affecting The Quality Of Service.” The opening sentence reads: “The Postal Service has been faced with critical financial problems in recent years. In fiscal year 1974, expenses exceeded revenues by about $2.3 billion.” The report’s recommendation? Close 12,000 small rural post offices and save $100 million.
The parallels between the 1975 report and our current situation are even more striking if you figure for inflation and convert those 1975 numbers to 2011 dol