Alarming post office losses

The U.S. Postal Service performs an important role in delivering personal letters, business communications and packages. Our Founding Fathers understood that, so they provided for the post office when they were writing the Constitution of the United States.

But unfortunately, the Postal Service can't meet all its obligations with the amount of revenue it takes in. Among other things, many people use the Internet for things that used to require the Postal Service. Just in the three months from Oct. 1 to Dec. 31, 2010, the post office ran $329 million in the red.

It is reported that the post office would have had a net profit of $226 million for the recent quarter -- except for a requirement that it make advance payments to cover big expected health care costs for future retirees.

With huge numbers of baby boomers starting to retire, don't the post office's troubles sound a bit like the difficulties facing our massive entitlement programs?

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