Posted on 11/02/2011 3:13:12 PM PDT by Colonel Kangaroo
Stressing that the United States Postal Service will run out of money to deliver mail by next summer, a bipartisan group of senators unveiled a proposal to help rescue the postal service.
“We are not crying wolf here,” Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said today. “The postal service literally will not survive unless comprehensive, legislative and administrative reforms are undertaken.”
Along with Collins, Sens. Tom Carper, D-Del., Scott Brown, R-Mass., and Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., revealed their plan, actually a melding of two plans, today at a news conference. It calls for a fundamental restructuring of the postal service, including cost-saving changes that will affect individual and business mailers and USPS employees.
“Too many people rely on the federal postal service for us to sit back and allow it to collapse,” Lieberman said.
(Excerpt) Read more at abcnews.go.com ...
“This is money they are owed. It is not a bailout."
I think he's right. People want the USPS run like a private business. Removing a burden, placed by Congress, that private businesses do not not have to carry is not a "bailout".
The Gang of Three here are NOT eliminating to the door delivery. Their rich friends in the Hamptons will continue having postal trucks run up to the man house at the compound every day!
Why dont they just put it back as a cabinet-level position, get rid of the unions, and put a military guy in charge of it and run it like an actual service?
The reality is that it will be impossible for the USPS to turn a profit in today’s day and age. The people that rely on it most, those in rural areas, cannot be served by Fed Ex or some private company at rates they can afford. Nor can those companies serve those areas without charging high prices.
The postal service already can’t deliver things economically at the prices they are charging due to overhead. Even cutting it sharply (layoffs, closing sites, etc) doesn’t get you there.
The question that people will have to ask is whether they want a national postal system that serves everyone at a loss, or we do close up shop. In closing up shop, you put a lot of folks out of touch.
Shutting down radio, tv, and the internet will no doubt improve the post office’s bottom line.
every government union is abusive.
privatize the usps.
"Bi-Partisan" (without even looking) ALWAYS includes Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, with an assorted wimpy Republican-in-name-only going along with them and being labeled "Moderate" by the State-Run-Media.
If the postal service can't function as a private enterprise, let OTHERS take it over "Privatize", and you'll see the efficiency skyrocket.
Senator Collins, first you must answer WHY the USPS SHOULD survive.
It is an expensive and now unnecessary historical anachronism. It is going bust because it offers a service that no one needs any longer.
Physical mail, to the extent it remains, can be handled by private carriers, as can all shipping.
That is all.
You are trying to preserve the horse-and-buggy after the automobile became mass-produced.
Let's see how the three states do and take a metric from that experiment.
That be 50% reduction in personnel and USPS sites.
But it’s the Teamsters at UPS, not the USPS unions, that have been out on strike in the past few decades.
The USPS can't survive as a public or private enterprise as long as Congress continues to require they prefund retiree benefits long into the future. No other business in the country operates under that burden. Remove it, and the prospects are much brighter for the USPS. This postal crisis is an artificial Congressionally created crisis.
They ought to lay-off half of all post-office employees, at every level, and go to every-other-day delivery ... half the customers get Monday-Wednesday-Friday delivery, the other half gets Tuesday-Thursday-Saturday.
Expenses are cut nearly in half, and the existing vehicle stock lasts twice as long.
Anyone who thinks they can’t get by without daily delivery can pay for it.
If a “rescue” saves the USPS pensions from getting a needed haircut, it’s a bad move.
I'd offer my services as Postmaster General, but I'm busy running my own business with increasing efficiency; besides, I vowed forty years ago never again to work for a government.
Name another kind of financial crisis that isn't. Can't wait till they take a crack at running healthcare if they can't even deliver a friggin letter.
The Constitution and the Post OfficeIn June 1788, the ninth state ratified the Constitution, which gave Congress the power “To establish Post Offices and post Roads” in Article I, Section 8. A year later, the Act of September 22, 1789 (1 Stat. 70), continued the Post Office and made the Postmaster General subject to the direction of the President. Four days later, President Washington appointed Samuel Osgood as the first Postmaster General under the Constitution. A population of almost four million was served by 75 Post Offices and about 2,400 miles of post roads.
The Post Office received two one-year extensions by the Acts of August 4, 1790 (1 Stat. 178), and March 3, 1791 (1 Stat. 218). The Act of February 20, 1792 (1 Stat. 232), continued the Post Office for another two years and formally admitted newspapers to the mails, gave Congress the power to establish post routes, and prohibited postal officials from opening letters. Later legislation enlarged the duties of the Post Office, strengthened and unified its organization, and provided rules for its development. The Act of May 8, 1794 (1 Stat. 354), continued the Post Office indefinitely.
The Post Office moved from Philadelphia in 1800 when Washington, D.C., became the seat of government.
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