PD Editorial: With less mail, a smaller Postal Service

Neither rain nor snow nor gloom of night, says the postal creed, but what about default?

Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe warned a Senate committee this week that his agency is "on the brink of default" and, without help, it soon won't be able to complete its appointed rounds.

In this age of wireless communication, with email increasingly giving way to instant messages and video chats, letters are becoming relics of the past. Meanwhile, people increasingly pay bills electronically, and retailers are abandoning catalogs for online advertising. What's left for the U.S. Postal Service is derisively known as "snail mail," and there's less of it all the time.

The change has been swift. Five years ago, the Postal Service handled a record 213 billion pieces of mail. This fiscal year, the postal system is expected to handle 167 billion, a drop of 22 percent since 2006. First-class mail, which generates more than half of postal revenue, has fallen even further, 25 percent, fueling a $9 billion deficit on the agency's $67 billion budget.

Postal officials already have cut annual costs by nearly $10 billion, shortening hours at some offices, combining routes and eliminating more than 100,000 jobs. Even that hasn't been enough to fulfill the Postal Service's obligation to break even, and that's why Donahoe is asking Congress for help.

"We do not want taxpayer money," he told the Senate Homeland Security Committee on Tuesday. "We have got to get our finances in order."

Donahoe is right. If the Postal Service, an agency older than the United States, is to survive, it must pick up the pace of remaking itself for the 21st century. To do that, postal officials need help from Congress and acceptance from the public.

To preserve mail service, some small communities must bid farewell to their post offices. As Staff Writer Guy Kovner reported on Sunday, the Postal Service is planning to close outlets in Annapolis, Camp Meeker and Villa Grande in Sonoma County and 3,700 others across the country. More closures are likely to follow.

These rural outposts are a bit of Americana — communal spaces to gather and chat, with postmasters who know everyone and pass on local news and messages. "If I find a dog, I'll call her," Brother Tolbert McCarroll, of Annapolis' Starcross Community, said of the local postmaster, Rae Brodjeski.

Locking post office doors isn't popular, but the agency has to make difficult choices. So does Congress, and there isn't much time to waste.

Although the Postal Service is required to support itself, Congress retains control over many of its practices. Among other things, Donahoe wants approval to end Saturday mail delivery, make additional cuts to the postal workforce and study the costs and benefits of replacing as many as 3,600 post offices with kiosks and locally contracted retailers.

There's no reason to turn him down. The Postal Service is a vital link for rural communities, which tend to have less access to high-speed Internet services and are less attractive to FedEx and other private courier services. Some of them may lose their post office, but no one should lose mail service.