The role of the United States Postal Service (USPS) is to bind the nation together by delivering to all Americans. It is based in the Constitution and enshrined in statute they must deliver mail and packages together to everyone everywhere six days a week. This not only unites the nation and creates a pathway to knit the 3.7 million square miles of our nation together, but it also provides a strong network for commerce and the delivery of needed goods.

Unfortunately, affordable, reliable and efficient Postal Service deliveries to rural America are threatened by several recent USPS actions. Given the fact one in 10 Coloradans live in such areas, residents of the Centennial State are likely to be among those most significantly impacted by these changes.

First, the Postal Service has recently imposed increased delivery prices for shippers sending their packages to more than 17,000 rural ZIP codes. That means higher costs this holiday season for gifts purchased online — as well as for essential household goods and medicines obtained in a similar fashion. Furthermore, the Postal Service has also jacked up prices for companies that drop their packages off closer to their final destination for “last-mile delivery.”

In recent years, a significant number of the packages delivered by the Postal Service have been efficiently processed and transported by private companies to the local post office for last-mile delivery by the USPS, which is a core competency and unique capability of the agency. In rural America this is even more so, and indeed, for many living in these areas, the Postal Service is the only package delivery carrier. This arrangement ultimately saves time and money, but these proposed changes may bring all that to an end and increase delivery costs. 

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Finally, the Postal Service is pursuing its “Regional Transportation Optimization” plan which would eliminate evening mail pickup at more tham 20,000 rural local post offices, reducing by half the frequency of service at these locations and adding an extra day of delivery time for many packages. This will not just impact rural Coloradans, but everyone in the state not within a 50-mile radius of Denver. So not only are delivery services in rural America going to become markedly more expensive now, but the service will also be far less timely as well.

There is no reason to increase the cost and at the same time reduce the quality of service for the millions who happen to live in rural America. Our founders created the Postal Service precisely to make sure all Americans — no matter where they lived — could be connected. The Postal Service met that goal for more than two centuries, but in recent years has begun to fail at this historically important mission.

Equal treatment for all is part and parcel of the values this country was founded on. The Postal Service has helped to realize this goal by binding and knitting the nation together and providing a reliable and cost-effective method for information to be transmitted and for commerce to be conducted from sea to shining sea, regardless of where you live. This has been one of the reasons 13 insignificant colonies were able to become an economic powerhouse and a united and connected nation. It would be a shame for the Postal Service to lose sight of this important mission that helped build America.

The onus is now on Congress. Through its constitutionally mandated oversight responsibilities, it must ensure the Postal Service does not deviate from this longstanding and crucial mission by discriminating against or disadvantaging Americans living in rural areas either by its rules, rates or other actions. By exercising a leadership role to help the Postal Service focus on its crucial mission, Congress can help maintain America’s economic strength, as well as its connectedness and unity, while also ensuring the Postal Grinch does not steal the Christmas of rural Coloradans. 

George Landrith is president of Frontiers of Freedom, a public policy think tank.