The Post Office’s $3 billion budget shortfall will likely result in delayed first class mail if the proposed budget cuts take place. The old adage that “the mail must go through” seems to have gone by the wayside as many Americans are blaming the federal agency for mismanagement and for paying their employees decent wages and benefits. 

Those expecting a letter in the mail the next day are unlikely to receive it and a carefully placed stamp will do nothing to ensure that their letters, payments, or cards will get to their intended destinations the next day either. 

The changes won’t just affect the delivery of our mail service--although that is probably what we will notice first--but will affect 35,000 postal employees who will lose their jobs as a result of the closure of at least 500 mail processing centers throughout the United States. 

The number of layoffs of postal workers is not insignificant and is unlikely to go unnoticed in the economy. Why did the government bail out the auto industry, the financial industry, and the airline industry, but not the Post Office, which is an official government agency? Why is the federal government bailing out corporations instead of fixing its own problems?

Corporate greed is one answer. Corporate welfare at the federal level is another. The big corporations have enormous power within our federal government and often, as in the case of GE, do not pay their fair share of taxes, if they pay taxes at all. 

 But that’s not what I hear from some people I know who complain constantly about the lazy government workers who have the audacity to collect their paychecks each month. These are the same government employees who have the audacity to feed their families and who expect the same level of benefits as they could earn in the private sector for the same level of work. 

The postal workers are not our enemies. Nor are any of the other government employees that I know of, most of whom work at wages less than they would earn in the private sector. Nor are the working class. The United States used to respect the working class citizens of our country, but that time seems long gone. 

The current fiscal crisis faced by our federal government is not going to be solved by treating the government like a corporation and blaming the workers for the mistakes of the leaders.