Senate tries to put wrangling aside to rescue Postal Service from insolvency

msnbc.com ^ | 4/19/12 | Tom Curry

[ColdOne]

“We’re really very, very close to getting something done,” said Majority Leader Harry Reid Thursday afternoon. “Our main issue now is whether there will be a 50-vote hurdle or a 60-vote hurdle,” he said.

The Postal Service is headed for financial collapse and perhaps for a taxpayer bailout. Whether Congress can avert this outcome and save it is the question that the Senate has been debating this week as it considers a bipartisan agency restructuring bill.

Reid warned on the Senate floor Thursday, “Those of you who are holding up the bill because you don’t like it, you may not like what the result of having no bill is.”

[EGPWS]

“We’re really very, very close to getting something done,” said Majority Leader Harry Reid Thursday afternoon.

Oh great.

Grab your wallet and pray.

[refermech]

Privatize it. The government screws up everything it touches.

[EGPWS]

allow Congress time to devise a way to resuscitate an enterprise that, if it were in the private sector, would be on the brink of bankruptcy or liquidation.

That's the problem....

Only government can flourish by flushing money down the proverbial sh!thole.

[EGPWS]

“Approximately 80 percent of its retail facilities do not generate sufficient revenue to cover their costs,” the GAO reported, yet “the number of USPS-operated retail facilities, about 32,000, has remained largely unchanged” over the past five years.

While millionaire fat cats in Washington insist that we keep paying for it with OUR hard earned labor!

[EGPWS]

Under the 1970 Postal Reorganization Act, the Postal Service was supposed to be financially self-sufficient, covering its costs through postal rates and fees. But in its previous reform efforts, Congress has shown that it manages and sometimes micromanages the Postal Service, even as it advocates self-sustainability.

Case closed, get government out of it or shut it down!!

[rightly_dividing]

Let it die.

[GeronL]

In other words enough Republicans will cross over, of course.

The GOPe was always thus

[Delta 21]

PULL THE PLUG. Its done!

[muawiyah]

The problem is the $5 billion tribute USPS must pay to Congress each year to balance the federal budget.

You see how well that worked ~ the budget isn't balanced and the USPS is nearly bankrupt.

That organization simply isn't large enough to support the US government.

Just give back the tribute ~ and stop collecting it in the future.

[muawiyah]

Obviously you know nothing.

[muawiyah]

And how is your labor paying for USPS?

They operate on postage and fees for services. They also provide a heavy cash subsidy to the US government to keep your taxes down.

[muawiyah]

GAO, as usual, is totally nuts. It's more like 95% of postal facilities do not generate sufficient revenue to cover their costs.

An internal project I worked on years ago revealed that we could close 28,000 postal facilities (mostly small non city delivery post offices in rural areas) and come out billions of dollars to the good.

Congress, at most, allowed us to approach the Postal Rate Commission for a regulation change that allowed us to shut down small post offices if they were burned down or destroyed by tornadoes.

Thoughts of corporate arson aside, that's the law ~ your Congress critters voted for it. GAO tells lies for Congress!

[TexasRepublic]

It is incomprehensible and unforgivable that Congress has not passed a national budget in over 3 years. We are a banana republic without the bananas.

[muawiyah]

All Constitutional strict constructionists recognize that providing post offices is a federal government requirement.

Those who prefer to dig into the penumbra of the Constitution are, of course, mind-numbed socialist wannabees ~ and they usually want to do it a different way.

Strict construction is a Conservative hallmark. Screwing with the Constitution and ignoring its provisions is a Leftwingtard hallmark.

[GeronL]

We can provide a slimmed down postal service at much lower cost. right?

Not that these GOPes will do that.

The GOPes have also passed tracking devices on all new cars starting in 2015.

[muawiyah]

With the letter mail processing equipment already installed distribution costs have been whacked to the bone ~ so there are an awful lot of folks who can be laid off.

You can reorganize rural delivery, change the headout offices and get rid of about 28,000 postmasters and relief clerks.

I suppose the benefits could be passed on to the ratepayers!

There's a popular theory that reductions in mail volume allow for serious reductions in delivery costs ~ it is in error.

We proved years back in a massive study that carrier costs increase in a quantum fashion, not linearly. The existing carrier base could tolerate an X% increase in mail volume with no major changes, then BANG you'd add one more letter and it'd need a MULTIPLE X% increase in carriers.

The factor driving carrier costs the most was mileage ~ and the more houses (and other stops) the more carriers would be needed.

It works the same way going backwards as you lose mail volume.

They've already gone through one of the reverse quantum jumps by whacking out all the overtime. Next, entire routes.

This is done through an existing procedure of route evaluation.

[baiamonte]

It’s easy. Rich people aren’t paying their fare share of postage. We need a special postage tax.

[goodwithagun]

I know! We’ll call it a stamp tax! (Hair standing up on the back of your neck yet?)

[vette6387]

“We can provide a slimmed down postal service at much lower cost. right?”

Yea, and at the same time get rid of a bunch of those surly minorities who are there to “serve you.” Being helpful, thoughtful and courteous are not amongst the items in their job description. The USPS is just another worthless government agency just like the GSA. Somewhere I read that ten years ago there were something on the order of 900,000 USPS “employees,” now it’s less than 500,000 and the number needs to be something around 250,000. Just think, all those pensions going to people who screwed with you at the P.O.! I would not miss it if it were gone tomorrow Constitutional requirement or not. Even most of the European countries have privatized their post offices.