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<div class="">August 9, 2013</div>
<h1>Playing Post Office</h1>
<h6 class="">By
<span>
<a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/opinion/editorialsandoped/oped/columnists/gailcollins/index.html" rel="author" title="More Articles by GAIL COLLINS"><span>GAIL COLLINS</span></a></span></h6>
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<p>
Today, let’s tackle a big national problem. Something that’s been going
on for so long that everybody’s exhausted and has lost all hope of
resolution in their lifetimes. (Like the baseball career of Alex
Rodriguez.) </p>
<p>
The Postal Service. Yes! Let’s fix the Postal Service, which lost more
than $15 billion last year. Lately, things have been going better, but
we’re still talking about a problem that’s actually way worse than
A-Rod. More like something between a plague of locusts and a small,
localized zombie invasion. </p>
<p>
And it’s not all the management’s fault. You would be losing money, too,
if your core product had been totally undermined by the Internet and
you were required to be a self-supporting business except for the part
where each and every move required special Congressional approval.
</p>
<p>
For instance, the Postal Service desperately wants to end Saturday
delivery, which would save about $2 billion a year. But, so far,
Congress has balked. Many lawmakers don’t like the idea because six-day
delivery is currently a universal fact, and even fiscal conservatives do
not like eliminating something their constituents <em>have</em>. </p>
<p>
So our first step in fixing the Postal Service will be to make it clear
that we are not going to vote anybody out of office for giving us
five-day mail. Voters from the right, ask yourself if you really want to
be the kind of people who will cheer for the slashing of food stamp
programs but whine when you are personally deprived of the ability to
receive a new Lands’ End catalog on a Saturday. Voters from the left,
just save your energy for the food stamp fight. </p>
<p>
Next stop, retirees. The Postal Service is supposed to deposit $5.5
billion a year in order to fund future retirees’ health benefits 75
years in advance. This was an idea cooked up on a dark day during the
Bush administration, possibly by Congressional conferees armed with eyes
of newt and toe of frog. Almost everybody now agrees it went way
overboard. Also, there is no earthly way the Postal Service can afford
to do it. Either Congress is going to have to give up on the idea or
allow the entire operation to implode. So the mission is pretty clear.
Discontinue the $5.5 billion deposits and get the accountants to work
out a new plan. </p>
<p>
Wow, you’ve cut that $16 billion deficit in half! Move over, Paul Ryan. </p>
<p>
How about closing some post offices? There are currently 31,272 in the
United States, which is more than the number of McDonald’s, Starbucks
and Walmart stores combined. This idea drives politicians from
low-population areas nuts. The current House bill, which recently came
out of committee on a party-line vote, says that if the Postal Service
closes offices, only 5 percent of them can be in rural districts.
</p>
<p>
“In an urban area you’re not going to be an hour away from another post
office,” says Blake Farenthold, a Texas Republican who is chairman of
the House subcommittee on postal issues. </p>
<p>
You know, he has a point. City folk, rally around the rural 5 percent
plan. In return for which, perhaps Representative Farenthold will hold a
press conference and announce his support of federal Amtrak subsidies
for the Northeast Corridor. </p>
<p>
Urban lawmakers, meanwhile, hate the idea of abolishing front-door mail
delivery, and making everyone use curbside mailboxes or those cluster
boxes you see in the front of new housing developments. This is a
favorite cause of House Republicans, but even the Postal Service
management isn’t really pushing it right now. Take the five-day delivery
thing and count your blessings, guys. </p>
<p>
Finally, we have New Business Ventures. And, once again, we are in awe
of what the Postal Service needs Congressional permission to do. One of
the big proposals bopping around Congress this year would permit mail
shipment of beer and wine. Right now this is illegal because there was
once, you know, Prohibition. </p>
<p>
“It would generate an estimated $50 million a year,” said Representative
Jackie Speier, a California Democrat who is pushing the idea in the
House. </p>
<p>
Some lawmakers have expressed concern about the problem of kids
attempting to skirt age regulations on the purchase of alcohol. This
presumes that a group of 17-year-olds in search of a forbidden drink
have an extremely high capacity for delayed gratification. </p>
<p>
Let’s allow the Postal Service to ship wine. We have just eliminated another two days’ worth of deficit! </p>
<p>
There are lots of other reasonable ideas bopping around, and all those
days could eventually add up. For instance, Speier, whose district
suffered a terrible gas explosion a few years back, says there’s
technology that would allow postal trucks to carry a small machine that
would test neighborhoods for gas leaks as the carriers complete their
appointed rounds. </p>
<p>
On a lighter note, Congressional staffers have wondered if the trucks
couldn’t deliver mail from one side and sell ice cream from another.
Really, anything that gets you through another day. </p>
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