Cited: MSNBC
Budget cutting is the most popular fiscal measure being taken in every corner of American society and nowhere is its impact being more felt than by the besieged U.S. Postal Service. In order to close gaps in revenue, some of which has been created by the Internet and other means by which people no longer rely on the services of the post office, the U.S. mail provider is considering closing more than 3800 post offices around the country and nearly 80% of them are in rural areas and areas that serve the poorest Americans.
Officials say that closing these offices would impact these areas more than most because in almost 33% of the regions being targeted for closure there is no Internet broadband service. The postal service is mandated to provide an effective degree of regular postal service throughout the United States and with over 3
2,000 locations in the U.S. they do indeed cover a lot of territory. However, with more and more people using email to correspond with one and other as well as other delivery services such as FedEx and UPS now making serious inroads into the postal service’s territory, their ability to do their job effectively everywhere and at a profit is being severely challenged and to some extent being made nearly impossible. Those that stand the most to lose are those Americans in areas where they still use the mail service to send letters and cards and where email is not an option for them. Estimates range up to three million people that could be affected by the proposed post office closings.
For its part the Post Office says that it chose the offices to be closed purely on revenue and not any other considerations. It is no surprise then that the offices slated for the chopping block are in some of the poorest rural communities in the United States. The Post Office is trying to close a budge gap of $20 billion by 2015 and some of the measure being proposed to do so include closing many locations, reworking salary and benefit packages of postal workers, eliminating jobs, and hikes in postage.
Many of the communities that would feel the impact most are in rural areas where the nearest town of any consequence is over 50 miles away and the residence of these areas depend on the postal service for vital deliveries such as vaccinations for livestock, medicine, and other news and communication necessary for the personal and professional lives.
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My take:
There has to be some way to provide a safety net of some sort to these communities. Simply cutting them off and letting them fend for themselves insofar as communicating and corresponding with the rest of the world just doesn’t seem like a good option. I would at least like to hear that there are plans to provide vital services for these communities and that cutting, cutting, cutting isn’t the only solution.
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Other Resources
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