Posted on 12/05/2011 4:39:32 AM PST by tobyhill
The U.S. Postal Service on Monday will announce a cost-savings proposal that would no longer deliver first-class mail on the next day.
The financially troubled agency will present to its overseers a proposal to change its national standard for first-class mail to two-to-five days from one-to-three, according to interviews with several mail industry officials who received a presentation by the agency this week.
"This isn't a change we're happy about," said Art Sackler, executive director of the National Postal Policy Council, a trade group for large mailers. "But if they don't cut somewhere and substantially, they're going to run out of cash next summer. It's one of the lesser evils."
Right now, customers on average receive mail the day after it was mailed, according the postal service. That may still happen, but a lot less frequently under the proposed rules, say the insiders who were briefed on the proposal.
The proposed rules are not a surprise. The postal service asked for public comment in September on "eliminating the expectation of overnight service" for first class mail. But it could have a major impact on customers, especially those who still use the mail to pay their bills.
(Excerpt) Read more at money.cnn.com ...
I know people in their 90s who still get a SS check in the mail. This despite the “changeover” to direct deposit. When I recently spoke with an agent about it, he said that for people that old the govt is going to make an exception and keep sending it snail. LOL, even the fed gov doesn’t want to argue with the greatest generation!
Until we reform all of the budget, we are still screwed.
the USPO must continue to serve the ever diminishing few
Or is there a “Bill of Musts” I haven’t heard about?
It’s not clear to me how delivering the mail more slowly would save money
i find being able to mail a card across country for 44 cents a bargain. even at 50 cents it would still be a bargain. caveat: i pay my bills by mail and send birthday and holiday cards, but i am not a big volume user as some businesses are.
What has USPS in trouble is that like purely private companies it’s being forced to fund future health care costs (and perhaps pensions, I’m not sure?) as it goes. All government entities are permitted to cheat and not do that. But the USPS unions want to continue to splurge like their purely government brethren. The proper fix is to apply the real world rules to them as well and declare liberalism and its government unions all to be bankrupt.
There is statute law that governs...... look it up
Allowing more time for Democrat voter fraud in Mail-In Elections....
If it weren't for Congress, the USPS wouldn't be in this situation at all.
At the very end of that year, Congress passed the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006 (PAEA). Under PAEA, USPS was forced to “prefund its future health care benefit payments to retirees for the next 75 years in an astonishing ten-year time span” — meaning that it had to put aside billions of dollars to pay for the health benefits of employees it hasn’t even hired yet, something “that no other government or private corporation is required to do.”
That’s exactly right, JohnBovenmyer. Time for a dose of sanity in the USPS.
Thank you for posting the APWU viewpoint. Now, care to post a sane counterpoint? Why in the world SHOULDN’T the USPS pay for their pension and retiree costs? If the USPS don’t want to be part of FERS or whatever, then they can withdraw and do it themselves. Fund everything with postage, and if they can’t cover it, time to cut costs and/or raise rates...
...just like those of us in the private sector have to do. USPS can suck it.
this will have an effect on court documents.
most states has a “mail rule” that adds three days to first class mail required deadlines. This will increase the calculation to five days.
even more if they cut saturday.
perhaps it is time to change the union pension prepay boondoggle rule.
Should they pay for the pension and retiree costs of employees they haven’t even hired yet?
There is statute law that governs...... look it up
That means Congress can change the law.
Nope. They have enough problems with paying the lavish pensions and benefits for their EXISTING employees. According to the GAO, current wages, pensions, and benefits account for more than 80% of the USPS’s costs. The USPS obviously has a structural problem, blame for which I suspect can be laid entirely at the feet of the Postal union.
I know and stated that Congress has mismanaged it.. they made a decision when things were flying high, and now everythings in the crapper they haven’t modified it... Typical Government, takes 10 years to act on anything.
“A great solution to losing customers... make your service crappier!”
They must have learned this from the airline industry, or was it the other way around, I forget!
What has USPS in trouble is that like purely private companies it’s being forced to fund future health care costs (and perhaps pensions, I’m not sure?) as it goes. All government entities are permitted to cheat and not do that. But the USPS unions want to continue to splurge like their purely government brethren. The proper fix is to apply the real world rules to them as well and declare liberalism and its government unions all to be bankrupt.
Nobody does that ~ Congress thought that would balance the books.
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