Take a letter

Facing bankruptcy, the U.S. Postal Service is pushing ahead with unprecedented cuts to first-class mail handling that by next spring could slow delivery and, for the first time in 40 years, eliminate the chance that a stamped letter could arrive anywhere the next day.

With total mail volume -- and particularly the best paying type of mail, first-class -- dropping substantially over the past 10 years thanks to email and electronic bill paying, the Postal Service is losing billions of dollars. Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe has said the agency must make cuts of $20 billion by 2015 to be profitable.

The cuts, now being finalized, would close roughly 250 of the nearly 500 mail processing centers across the country as early as March, necessarily slowing the movement of mail.

Meantime, the Postal Service already has announced a 1-cent increase -- to 45 cents -- for first-class stamps beginning Jan. 22.

The consolidation of the mail processing centers is in addition to the planned closure of about 3,700 local post offices. In all, roughly 100,000 postal employees could be cut as a result of the various closures, resulting in savings of up to $6.5 billion a year.

In Nevada, the list of possible closures would affect primarily small, rural communities including Baker, Deeth, Denio, Gabbs, Golconda, Lund, Manhattan, Montello, Ruth, Schurz and Silverpeak.

The changes would provide short-term relief, "but ultimately could prove counterproductive, pushing more of America's business onto the Internet," writes The Associated Press.

Perhaps. But that trend will continue, regardless. In fact, if anything the Postal Service has been too slow to adapt over the years, putting it a position today where it has little choice but to impose these cuts if it hopes to survive. Because in the end, yes, the post office must change with the times, just as railroads finally had to give up "featherbedding" firemen with no more coal to shovel.