Posted on 07/23/2013 1:18:07 PM PDT by rightwingintelligentsia
Mail delivery to the doorstep may be a thing of the past as lawmakers consider ways to cut costs to save the cash-strapped U.S. Postal Service, which lost $16 billion in 2012.
According to CNN Money, the agency is working toward a more "centralized delivery" approach in which residents pick up their mail from a mailbox at the curb or at clusters of mailboxes within their neighborhoods.
The practice already is being adopted for new houses and developments, and some House Republicans want it rolled out universally.
"A balanced approach to saving the Postal Service means allowing USPS to adapt to America's changing use of mail," said Rep. Darrell Issa, the California Republican leading the House effort to save the Postal Service.
Doing away with doorstep delivery has become a central part of Issa's proposal to save money. Ending door-to-door deliveries would save $4.5 billion a year from the $30 billion the mail service currently spends on delivery.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsmax.com ...
Then why would it continue to exist?
I would be OK with things like this if it actually solved the problem. The issue is unsustainable benefits and an organization that just doesn’t function. This will just mean less services and the problem will resurface in 5 or 10 years.
Yeah, that'll work.
A lot of the door-to-door walking routes are in areas of poverty, crime, and concentrations of elderly people. Are they seriously going to make those people walk to centralized mailboxes to receive their mail? I just don’t see it being approved when it gets right down to making the change.
The USPS was supposed to be a shining example as to how well the government can run a business ... like Obamacare.
When you have an organization that pays people 50-60 k per year plus income for life after retirement to do what a monkey could do there might just be a problem.
If they’re going to end home delivery, then it’s time to open it up to competition. Let FedEx and UPS deliver letters.
They are incompetant.
later
Sounds like a plan to me. We are moving to the mountains soon and there is very little house delivery up there . Most folks have a PO box.
They might want to build a few new post offices, and enlarge existing ones. If not, getting your mail will be like going to motor vehicles departments. Get a number, and wait for hours.
Potential identity theft problem. That will kill it.
Also probably not practical in older neighborhoods with sidewalks where you can’t just pull up to a clusterbox easily.
Frankly I don’t need nor do I want 90% of the mail I get. All junk. End up wasting an evening per month shredding it all.
Amazon is already doing this.
No door to door anywhere I’ve lived for the past 50 years. Only to condos, and they have central post boxes. Everyone else has a curbside mailbox.
FWIW, a lot of rural people already walk a quarter-mile or more to get their mail from the nearest roadside box. I know, because I was one. The exercise didn't hurt us at all, even when it was 40 below zero. You adapt.
Just saying that, politically, this is a loser.
The Post Office is a useless anachronism and should just be shut down. The Constitution says the Feds may run a Post Office, not that they MUST run a Post Office. Terminate it now.
That’s my concern as well. We already have clustered street mailboxes and I’m fine with that. But with public employee unions nothing is ever “good enough.” The only solution is to ban public employee unions — snowall in Hell chance of that.
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