Business is not my forte, but I know that if your business is losing customers, you might want to increase customer service and decrease the price of your goods. The post office is doing the opposite--raising the prices and cutting Saturday deliveries, local post offices, and regional distribution centers.
Jim Hightower, author of the newsletter “Hightower Lowdown” has an answer to the charge that the Post Office is unprofitable. As he puts it, so what.
He points out that the Pentagon never makes a profit, nor does the Center for Disease Control, the FBI, or the State Department. Making a profit is not the goal of government agencies, service is. The post office was considered a government service from Ben Franklin’s days to 1971, when the Nixon administration decided that the service should be run like a business (AIG?, Enron?) and make its money from stamps.
Here’s what the “Hightower Lowdown” says:
The post office is more than a bunch of buildings--it’s a community center and, for many towns, an essential part of the local identity, as well as a tangible link to the rest of the nation. As former Sen. Jennings Randolph poignantly observed, ‘When the local post office is closed, the flag comes down.” The corporatizer crowd doesn’t grasp that going after this particular government program is messing with the human connection and genuine affection that it engenders.
One of the post offices slated to be closed is the Franklin Post Office in Philadelphia. In 1775 the Continental Congress adopted Franklin’s proposal to establish a national post office.
You might want to check out the website <www.SaveThePostOfffice.com>y. It has suggestions for action.
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