Don’t mess with Postal Service

The Constitution of the United States of America, Article I, Section 8, enjoins Congress with the responsibility to establish post offices and furnish postal roadways.

Katrina Vanden Heuvel, editor/publisher of The Nation, calls our Postal Service the most popular government agency in the country.

Well, the Trump administration doesn’t seem to want to leave very popular alone.

Another hokey “privatization” scheme is afoot, (resented under the obvious falsehood that the current system is deemed “unsustainable”).

As Ms. Heuvel affirms almost all the agency’s losses may be ascribed to an off-center piece of legislation.

That 2006 measure required the funding of retiree health benefits three-quarters of a century in advance. In other words, health benefits for elderly postal workers who have yet to be born!

Apart from this wry legality, the privatization scheme would be quite unfair for country folk. Although the Postal Service has to deliver mail to rural locations, private companies could do as they please. In effect, remote communities would suffer simply because of where they live. Shades of the days before “rural free delivery?”

Distilled to its essence, this controversy entails much more than mere sentimentality.

The small-town image, including the quaint public library, general merchandise store and friendly post office may be fondly consigned to Norman Rockwell illustrations. Our modern and matter-of-fact world can ill afford to have our Postal Service tampered with for private financial gain. William Dauenhauer

Willowick