Do we still need the post office? It's mentioned in the Constitution, but as Americans increasingly rely on the Internet, the role of the Postal Service is shrinking, and it's losing billions of dollars a year.

• Author: John, Richard R.
• Position: DEBATE

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YES Despite the emergence of Facebook, Twitter, and e-mail, Americans stilt need the post office. It is the only business whose establishment is authorized by the Constitution, and Congress would be foolish to abandon it.

Private delivery companies like Federal Express and UPS thrive in big cities and bustling suburbs. But only the Postal Service guarantees the low-cost delivery of letters, magazines, and parcels for the millions of Americans who live in sparsely settled places like Wyoming and Alaska. What's more, Federal Express and UPS could decide at any point to go into another line of business or could even go out of business altogether. Then how would retirees get Social Security checks? How would the rest of us get all our packages from Amazon?

The post office also provides a great back-up communications system if our digital communications were to fail, in the event of, say, a huge blackout or a cyber-attack by terrorists.

The post office is projected to rose more than $7 billion this year, leading some to urge Congress to pull the plug. Yet its financial record is no worse than that of many Fortune 500 corporations. And perhaps we should be more forgiving, since Congress requires the post office to perform many non-postal tasks, such as processing passport applications, that increase its costs.

In the past year, Congress baited out the banking industry and the auto industry. Is the post office any less deserving of taxpayer funding? For much of its history, the post office has lost money and few Americans objected. That's because it provides a public service that Americans value. So long as it does, it deserves our continued support and respect.

--RICHARD R. JOHN, AUTHOR, SPREADING THE NEWS: THE AMERICAN POSTAL SERVICE FROM FRANKLIN TO HORSE

NO As the Internet continues to erode the use of snail mail, do we even need the government to deriver the mail anymore? To me...