Poll: How Should the Postal Service Address Its Financial Problems

The U.S. Postal Service has announced major cutbacks that could include fewer delivery days and the closing of up to half of its nearly 500 mail processing centers around the country.

The postal service acknowledges that the changes could lead to longer spans between mailing and delivery, but officials say these changes are necessary to plug a multi-billion dollar gap in its annual budget.

According to Sunday's New York Times, the postal service is caught in a vortex of change.

The founding fathers regarded the postal service as an essential instrument of nation building in a vast new country, serving to “bind the nation together,” according to the law that created it. After radio and telegraph communications rendered that role obsolete in the early 20th century, the post office instead took on an important commercial function, with bills and payments sent by mail allowing for the growth of regional and national companies. But faxes, then direct deposit, and now online billing and payments have provided alternative delivery systems for what was yesterday’s mail — from paychecks to birth announcements, said Ian Lee, a historian of both the United States and Canadian postal services.

“The post office is in the final stage of decaying into total irrelevance,” said Mr. Lee, a professor of strategic management at the Sprott School of Business at Carleton University in Ottawa.

This has left officials searching for ways to balance the postal service's books and maintain its relevancy.

What do you think needs to be done?