America's postal system was thrown a lifeline this week. The U.S. Senate, in a rare show of bipartisanship, voted to stave off Draconian cuts and retool the nation's mail-delivery system with nearly $11 billion for buyouts and early retirement-incentives for thousands of postal workers, as well as for paying off a lot of the Postal Service's debt.

The end of Saturday mail delivery was put off for at least two years. The status of dozens of facilities -- including the Toledo mail-processing center on St. Clair Street and its 400 employees -- remains in limbo, as do the futures of many postal stations. The Senate has shown a preference to keep rural post offices open, unless locals don't object to closing them.

Ultimately, 125 of the nation's 500 mail-processing centers still are in danger of closing, down from the original threat to shutter 252. Ten are in Ohio, along with 120 threatened post offices.

The Postal Service has faced hard adjustments in response to the digital age. But its problems can't all be blamed on Internet advertising, email, social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, online publications, and the emergence of private, overnight letter and package delivery companies.

Republicans in Congress largely manufactured the crisis with a 2006 law that requires the Postal Service to prefund 75 years of future retiree health benefits in just 10 years. No other agency of the federal government has such a burden.

The union that represents letter carriers has collected records to show that the prefunding requirement has accounted for $21 billion of the agency's losses since 2007. That's 84 percent of the Postal Service's debt.

Election Day politics likely played a part in the Senate vote. The still-to-be-determined closings aren't expected to occur until after the November election, ostensibly to avoid unnecessary disruptions in places that rely heavily on voting by mail.

Congress should be just as sensitive to the needs of senior citizens and other people of limited means who may have trouble paying their bills on time if mail service is cut back. They often are not as computer-savvy as other people, are uncomfortable revealing credit-card information online, or simply are set in their ways. It's not mere nostalgia to ask Congress whether the Postal Service should be treated more like an institution and less like a regular business.

The Senate vote has bought the Postal Service some time. It acted less than a month before an arbitrary May 15 deadline. Reform never had to play out this way.

First Published April 28, 2012, 4:00 a.m.