Mail service issues are not about urban v. rural

A July 19 commentary cast U.S. Postal Service problems somewhat oddly, suggesting that the Heartland faces slower mail deliveries so the 'Postal Service can deliver chocolates, flowers or teddy bears in San Francisco.”

There are various misconceptions about the Postal Service, but few this creative. Perhaps it's time for some straight talk about the actual situation.

Degradation of service affects everyone, whether in Cedar Rapids, Alburnett - or San Francisco. When mail-processing facilities close, people face mail delays.

If Saturday mail delivery is eliminated, as some in Congress propose, small businesses in Cedar Rapids - or Chicago - won't receive weekend checks or orders. Veterans, the elderly and millions more will wait longer for government benefits or other important items.

Similarly, if door-to-door delivery ends, people everywhere will search neighborhoods for cluster boxes.

Bottom line: threats to mail service target everyone, not just specific areas. The real question is why Americans' mail service is threatened, and what can be done about it.

Conventional wisdom would say this - The Postal Service loses billions of dollars annually because everyone's on the Internet, plummeting mail volume produces mounting red ink, taxpayers are on the hook, and so services must be cut. But that's entirely false.

For starters, postal operations are profitable. The Postal Service reported $1.4 billion in operating profits in Fiscal Year 2014, a figure already surpassed halfway through 2015.

After dropping during the Great Recession, mail revenue is stabilizing amid an improving economy. Meanwhile, as Cedar Rapids residents shop online, package revenue is skyrocketing.

Moreover, taxpayers aren't involved with postal finances - by law, the Postal Service earns its revenue by selling stamps and services.

Postal Service red ink is unrelated to the mail or the Internet. Rather, it stems from Washington politics. In 2006, a lame-duck Congress mandated that the Postal Service prefund future retiree health benefits. No other entity has to prefund for even one year; the Postal Service must prefund 75 years into the future and pay for it all over a decade. That $5.6 billion annual charge is the red ink.

Some in Washington hope to use this artificial financial 'crisis” to destroy the Postal Service, even turn its duties over to private corporations.

But degrading profitable postal networks would needlessly hurt Iowans, rural or urban. It would hurt the Postal Service's bottom line, by driving mail away. It would ignore the actual problem - the prefunding mandate. And it would cost Iowa jobs. The national mailing industry, dependent on a robust, six-days-a-week Postal Service, employs 7.5 million Americans in the private sector - including 92,280 Iowans.

The Postal Service, based in the Constitution, unifies this vast nation. It's the largest employer of veterans. Every day on their routes, letter carriers save elderly residents who've fallen or taken ill, remove people from burning cars after accidents, find missing children or stop crimes in progress. In May, letter carriers again conducted the country's largest single-day food drive, restocking food pantries everywhere.

Iowans should urge their congressional representatives to preserve the postal networks while addressing the prefunding fiasco. Then the Postal Service can continue to offer Americans, whether in our metropolitan centers or smallest towns, the world's most-affordable delivery network.

' Fredric Rolando is president of the National Association of Letter Carriers. Comments: nalcinf@nalc.org