While we're sorry for the few hundred people who will be inconvenienced by the pending closure of the Hellam post office, it's important to keep things in perspective.

Earlier this month, the U.S. Postal Service announced it had lost a staggering $8.5 billion in the recently ended fiscal year, nearly twice the deficit it racked up the previous year.

And that's in spite of cutting more than 100,000 jobs.

With more people using e-mail and paying bills on-line, the recession taking its toll on advertising mail, and competition from shipping firms such as UPS and Federal Express, the Postal Service has to take drastic action.

Without it, the service's board of governors warned Congress, it could very well be broke by this time next year.

Although the Postal Service doesn't receive tax money, it still has to answer to Congress, which has shown little inclination to let the agency operate like a true business, one that's free to adapt to changing times.

While lawmakers allowed the Postal Service to close more than 160 post office branches, including Hellam's, the agency has been stonewalled or shot down on other cost-saving measures.

Nearly two years ago, Postmaster General John Potter asked Congress to lift the requirement that it deliver mail six days a week, citing a steep decline in the volume of mail it delivers.

He's still waiting for an answer.

Potter, who is set to retire early next month, also has asked Congress to lift a 2006 mandate that it pre-fund retirement benefits to the tune of $5 billion a year, something he says no other large business or federal agency is required to do.

Lawmakers so far have refused to budge.

There are other changes the postal service would like to make, ones it says will put the 235-year-old agency on the path to solvency.

Unfortunately, most require Congress and bureaucrats to get out of the way.

Change can be difficult and inconvenient in the short term -- but if we want to save any semblance of this service we've taken for granted for so long, we have to accept that it's necessary.