Possible USPS shutdown means more than less presents on Holidays

It looks like students may have to live without their Christmas care packages this upcoming winter. This isn't because their mother doesn't love them anymore, it's because the U. S. Postal Service may soon be forced to shut down. If Congress doesn't step in to help make the $5.5 billion payment the U.S. Postal Service owes this month, the agency will default and have to close down this winter. Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe is meeting with Congress to ask for help in stabilizing finances. According to the New York Times, plans for cutting costs include eliminating Saturday mail delivery, closing 3,700 post offices and laying off over 120,000 employees. None of the previous details sound pretty at all; however, I'm not surprised the U.S. Postal Service is forced to face these extreme measures. With the invention of email and text messaging, sending actual mail to actual mailboxes has become unnecessary. It's not efficient to write out, stamp and drop our mail into a physical mailbox when we can instantly send messages through the Web. Not to mention it makes avoiding the annoying price of stamps possible. The U.S. Postal Service is out of money because contracts with union employees have their wages taking up 80 percent of the agency's expenses, whereas competitors United Parcel Service and FedEx employees' wages take up less than half of that. The union that U.S. Postal Service employees join also negotiated no layoff clauses, only making the situation messier. When Donahoe goes to Congress, he will not only ask for more money, but he will also as to lift the no layoff clause. Even if the U.S. Postal Service does stay afloat after the massive layoffs and cutbacks, it doesn't mean their problems are over. The best of times for the U.S. Parcel Service are behind them and saving the agency now would only prolong the inevitable. Some may argue what a disgrace it would be to allow the historic post office, which was created by founding father Benjamin Franklin in 1775 nearly a year before our country's Declaration of Independence, to die. However, the growing concern of our current national debt will make it hard for Donahoe to win the financial support the U.S. Postal Service needs to survive from Congress. The U.S. Postal Service can look to other avenues to help cover their expenses. They can try to get the rights to delivering beer and wine, or even allow commercial advertising on their trucks. While these are riveting ideas at bringing in more revenue, they are still not the end to all of our answers. Come wintertime I do hope the U.S. Postal Service is still around. I don't want to see a vital part of our nation's history just fade away, along with the thousands of jobs. If this does happen I won't be surprised. With the speedy progression of technology, the old will eventually replace the new. I won't miss the taste of envelope glue either.