The thought of not having a postal service is the scariest thing I’ve ever read in the Tribune. It’s impossible to contemplate what life would be like if I couldn’t send checks to the companies I do business with, except by computer and credit card (which is allegedly easier but is actually more complicated). And that’s just one example of what we’d be reduced to if the Postal Service were to go under.
If President Obama would stop sticking his nose into other countries’ business and start paying more attention to our own troubles at home, maybe the Postal Service could become solvent rather than being on the brink of bankruptcy. What the federal government should do is get the heck out of Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya and use the dollars they’d save that way to shore up a dangerously sinking Postal Service.
Taxpayers’ money has never gone to pay the bills of the service. It supports itself. It’s miraculous that it’s managed to do so for so many decades, ever since the Pony Express went out of business and the Postal Service was put in its place. Another proposed way to cut costs is to eliminate Saturday deliveries. That’s a good idea — a lot better than no deliveries at all. Reducing the number of post offices is another good idea. Another way to keep the service solvent would be to pass a law that charges money for Internet use. It’s the Internet, more than any other factor, that’s to blame for the precarious position that the service is in now.
Anything is preferable to becoming like a third-world country.
— Gloria Kaplan Sulkin, Chicago
