Democrats and Republicans in Washington are entertaining proposals that would, in the words of the American Postal Workers Union, "end the postal service as we know it." There are proposals to break union contracts, layoff tens of thousands of postal workers and gut the service. This is not a "financial" crisis; it is a "political" crisis.

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When I started covering politics, Jennings Randolph was completing his tenure as the grand old man of Capitol Hill. The last sitting member of Congress to have arrived with Franklin Roosevelt in 1933 (as a member of the House), he was still sitting as a senator from West Virginia more than 50 years later. Perhaps as importantly, he had been born only a little more than a century after the Constitution was adopted.

Randolph recognized the connection between the Constitution and the New Deal, seeing in both an element of nation-building that focused on the affirmative role of government and the necessary role of the extension of the federal government that could be found in every hinterland hamlet and urban neighborhood: the post office.

Randolph was the great defender of the postal service that Ben Franklin had established and that the framers of the Constitution had seen fit to recognize as an essential project of the federal endeavor.

Randolph waxed poetic about the post office, respecting the local facility, be it a frame building at a country crossroads or a brick-and-mortar monument at the center of the largest city. It was, he said, more than a purveyor of packages and mail, more than a source of employment, more even than a meeting spot and focal point for community.

The post office, Randolph explained, was the friendly and honorable face of a government that could otherwise seem distant and, at times, ominous.

As a true Jeffersonian Democrat, and a faithful New Dealer, Randolph argued that those who understood the positive role that government could play in the lives and communities of Americans had better make the defense of the post office a high priority.

"When the post office is closed, the flag comes down," he said. "When the human side of government closes its doors, we're all in trouble."

Randolph spoke the faith of the small-"d" democrat with those words -- and, at least in his time, that of the large-"D" Democrat.

But, today, Democrats and Republicans in Washington are entertaining proposals that would, in the words of the American Postal Workers Union, "end the postal service as we know it."

There are proposals afoot to close as many as 3,700 post offices nationwide -- most of them in rural communities and inner cities, where there services (and the employment they provide) are most needed.

There are proposals to end Saturday delivery, and perhaps to make even more extensive cutbacks -- moves that would drive more business away from the US Postal Service and toward private-sector competitors that will not match its standard of universal service to all Americans.

There are proposals to break union contracts, layoff tens of thousands of postal workers and gut the service.

Why? Because of bad policies forced upon the USPS, policies that could be reversed as quickly as they were implemented. Those bad policies have created what is called a "financial crisis." This is not a "financial" crisis; it is a "political" crisis.

The postal service is running the deficits that so concern conservative politicians and pundits not because it is inefficient, and not even because it faces new forms of digital competition. It is running deficits because it was forced to pre-pay seventy-five years of retiree health benefits in ten years, and because it overpaid federal pension funds by more than $80 billion.

The crisis is, as Ralph Nader and other consumer advocates argue, "manufactured."

Across the country today, tens of thousands of postal workers, union allies and community advocates will rally to defend the United States Postal Service and to argue for responsible Congressional action to renew and strengthen a precious public asset.

Jennings Randolph (who passed in 1998) isn't around to cheer them on. But if he were, he would celebrate the fact that there are still great masses of Americans who recognize that "when the human side of government closes its doors, we're all in trouble."

Cross-posted from The Nation

Authors Bio:

John Nichols, a pioneering political blogger, has written the Online Beat since 1999. His posts have been circulated internationally, quoted in numerous books and mentioned in debates on the floor of Congress.


Nichols writes about politics for The Nation magazine as its Washington correspondent. He is a contributing writer for The Progressive and In These Times and the associate editor of the Capital Times, the daily newspaper in Madison, Wisconsin. His articles have appeared in the New York Times, Chicago Tribune and dozens of other newspapers.


Nichols is a frequent guest on radio and television programs as a commentator on politics and media issues. He was featured in Robert Greenwald's documentary, "Outfoxed," and in the documentaries Joan Sekler's "Unprecedented," Matt Kohn's "Call It Democracy" and Robert Pappas' "Orwell Rolls in his Grave." The keynote speaker at the 2004 Congress of the International Federation of Journalists in Athens, Nichols has been a featured presenter at conventions, conferences and public forums on media issues sponsored by the Federal Communications Commission, the Congressional Progressive Caucus, Consumers International, the Future of Music Coalition, the AFL-CIO, the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, the Newspaper Guild [CWA] and dozens of other organizations.


Nichols is the author of the upcoming book The Genius of Impeachment (The New Press), as well as a critically-acclaimed analysis of the Florida recount fight of 2000, Jews for Buchanan (The New Press) and a best-selling biography of Vice President Dick Cheney, Dick: The Man Who is President (The New Press), which has recently been published in French and Arabic. He edited Against the Beast: A Documentary History of American Opposition to Empire (Nation Books), of which historian Howard Zinn said: "At exactly the time when we need it most, John Nichols gives us a special gift--a collection of writings, speeches, poems, and songs from throughout American history--that reminds us that our revulsion to war and empire has a long and noble tradition in this country."


With Robert W. McChesney, Nichols has co-authored the books, It's the Media, Stupid! (Seven Stories), Our Media, Not Theirs (Seven Stories) and Tragedy and Farce: How the American Media Sell Wars, Spin Elections, and Destroy Democracy (The New Press). McChesney and Nichols are the co-founders of Free Press, the nation's media-reform network, which organized the 2003 and 2005 National Conferences on Media Reform.


Of Nichols, author Gore Vidal says: "Of all the giant slayers now afoot in the great American desert, John Nichols's sword is the sharpest."