Save the U.S. Postal Service
To the editor:
There have been news reports the past several years about the U.S. Postal Service’s severe financial condition. It has reached a crisis this year as revenue has declined along with a 20 percent decline in mail volume. The Postal Service is on the verge of going bankrupt and closing.
If that happens, it would be a disaster of catastrophic proportions. It would put a large number of postal employees out of work and really hurt the economy.
The Postal Service is 7 percent of the gross national product and millions of Americans use the Postal Service to mail money, goods and communications. The problem is caused by emails and texting replacing postal mail, especially first class mail.
To save the Postal Service, I urge Americans to stop sending so many emails and go back to postal mail. Write letters and pay your bills by postal mail. It is fast, inexpensive and unlike email, it is reliable and dependable. I use postal mail all the time.
With computers, information is sometimes lost. Screens freeze up, viruses invade, servers crash and other problems occur. None of these things happen with postal mail.
As a result of computers, we have a generation of very fat teens and adults who spend endless hours sitting at computers. They are losing the ability to read, write and speak.
There have been divorces over computer use. One man told me his wife was on the computer day and night and he couldn’t get her off of it. She neglected the children. He finally divorced her. It is an addiction.
Write or call your U.S. senators and U.S. representative and ask them to co-sponsor and vote for legislation that will end the financial crisis for the Postal Service and put it back on sound financial footing.
About one-fourth to one-third of the American people do not have computers or email. If the Postal Service closes, 25 to 33 percent of the population will be left with no way to communicate, other than by telephone.
RALPH A. GILBERTSEN
Burnsville
