Thursday, January 5, 2012
Arkansas Culture and Characters Arkansas highlighted in postoffice fight
Posted by Max Brantley on Thu, Jan 5, 2012 at 7:05 AM
The New York Times chooses postoffices in small Arkansas communities to highlight the fight over the Postal Service's move to cut costs by reducing local service.
Will the Prim, Tilly, Ida and Fox postoffices go the way of those in Newnata, Rushing and Cozahome?
But if the people in Fox have a say, it will not happen again, at least not here.“There are those who have been downtrodden so long, they can’t get back up,” said Stanley Morrison, 59, a logger and a justice of the peace here in rural Stone County. “And there are others who’ve been downtrodden so long they decide to fight back.”
Happily, the Times notes the awe-inspiring hypocrisy of the likes of U.S. Sen. John "Dr. No" Boozman and U.S. Rep. Rick Crawford, professed budget hawks, who are fighting to preserve deficit-running postal outposts in their territory. Boozman even comes up with a rare moment of clarity — one that would be useful applied to many other issues, such as health care.
Mr. Boozman has even proposed legislation that would ban the closing of any post office if the nearest one is more than 10 miles away. “There are times when it’s not as profitable,” he said, explaining this apparent departure from small-government orthodoxy, “but it’s important to provide that service.”
Boozman: BHD of the day and early nominee for BHD of the year.
PS — Times article includes a photo slideshow. The YouTube is from a group fighting to save the Fox postoffice.
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Comments (8)
Showing 1-8 of 8
Yep, and the large majority of all the folks trying to save their deficit creator post offices go to the polls to vote for the hypocrites.
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Isn't the answer obvious? We need to sell all post offices to some of those highly efficient, consumer-friendly, for-profit corporations.
That should fix it.
Senator Boozman and other Republicans are not being hypocritical. It is just that their politics cuts both ways. Profit-making enterprises are to be left free to extract revenue from customers, suppliers, government, and Mother Earth. The government is there ony to see to it that politicians' constituents get unprofitable -- but essential -- services without taxing any profits or salaries to pay for it.
The post offices in places like Prim and Fox were established as a government service when the U.S. Post Office was the only means of communication. (Am I the only blog reader old enough to remember that R.F.D. means "Rural Free Delivery"?) Postage was paid by the sender, but even politicians knew that postage was not enough to get mail delivered to the rural poor! But, now, the U. S. Postal Service must operate without tax revenue or government subsidy -- only political control.
Close them all down. Stood in line for 10 minutes at Fayetteville's PO on Dickson St. yesterday before finally leaving in disgust. Line snaked outside the door, yet only one window was fully operational. Three other workers stood around behind the counter totally oblivious customers' needs.
Silverback said: "Isn't the answer obvious? We need to sell all post offices to some of those highly efficient, consumer-friendly, for-profit corporations."
Actually not a bad idea. There's no reason why the post office couldn't partner with Walmart or other stores to offer a post office kiosk within stores.
No for-profit company will ever give me the same value I get from the USPS.
If a private company came by my house six days a week to pick up and drop off letters going across country, it would cost several dollars to mail a letter plus probably an annual fee for home service.
And then people who couldn't afford that fee would be like those who can't afford health care, education or political representation: Out of luck, so sorry, you aren't a producer so go ahead and die.
The costs of lobbying, advertising, marketing, corporate jets and multi-million dollar CEO salaries alone would probably total to what we pay for postage now.
The only reason the Post Office is targeted is because private industry sees it as more desirable to make a profit by offering lower service than for the government to not make a profit with better service.
Your idea has merit, Viper, although I'm more inclined to suggest post office kiosks in convenience stores and the like. They, rather than Wal-Mart, are more likely to be located in the small communities which are at risk of losing service and already have personnel available to take care of the intermittent demand for services. If I had to go to Wal-Mart to get stamps or mail a package here, I'd have to drive past three post offices or stations, none of which are slated for closing. Similar situations exist in most areas where Wal-Marts are located. Unless you're on that side of town, it's pretty far out of the way, whereas I have two convenience stores nearby. In many smaller towns, they're clustered at major intersections.
Incidentally, I'd guess you arrived at your local PO during a heavy money order demand time. Stamp buying, even package mailing, takes a minimum of time. Money orders take forever and a day. And those other employees? They probably weren't authorized to work the windows, the same as just any Wal-Mart employee is not authorized to be a cashier.
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