I am more of the mind that mail should be a function of the private sector, but that has its problems as well I suppose.
Government, the only entity which can 100% of the market and still lose money.
This will hurt Red States almost exclusively. Not blue ones. Of course I wouldn’t expect dimwit Issa to think anything through.
Absolutely no reason for Saturday delivery. It’s no longer how we do business in most cases.
Considering how wired we are now, I would be good with going to 3-day a week mail (Monday, Wed, Friday). As it is, I only pick-up mine once a week anyway.
With 3-day service, they could use the other two days a week to sort mail and probably be able to cut their budget in half. I just don’t see a strong need for daily delivery anymore.
There is no reason the post office should be losing money. I am aware that they are required to fully fund their pensions at the time of hiring (unlike federal government/agencies) which has put a cash crunch on their books. Still, from my vantage point they are moving in the right direction. There is no other entity that can pick up from and drop off to every address in America every day. Fed Ex and UPS skimmed a lot of the cream off their routes but they are doing a decent job trying to get it back. Still some kinks, and those postal vehicles are not ideal for package delivery but $2 billion is less than 3% their annual volume. They should be encouraged to act like any business and plan growth strategies, not strategies to cut back their business. Their annual revenue growth is much lower than their competitors. I think expansion would help. How much does UPS make on Saturday package delivery?
Back in the middle of the last century my home town not only had Monday through Saturday daily delivery, but businesses received deliveries twice a day during the work week.
I submit that Congress should stop trying to screw We The People. We require a Postal Service and We require Monday though Saturday delivery.
So Congress, quit messing around! Investigate options as businessmen. And yes, that means nonunion options!!
For packages, contract with the UPS stores or turn existing post offices into package stations, and let people pick up their packages from there.
Also, let the USPS get into the money-transfer, check-cashing, and pay-day loan businesses.
Mail service is obsolete. It's time for the USPS to embrace the 21st century.
Get rid of it!
In the 1960s, they delivered residential mail twice a day. The mailman walked the route with his big leather bag.
It’s a demonstration of how generally useless our elected officials are that they continue to come up with ways to “save” the post office money that will just make it less useful and therefore lose it money, when all they have to do is stop making the PO pay for the next 25 years of pensions every month. Congress are the guys that put the PO in this situation with one bad sentence, and they can get it out by erasing that sentence, but no that’s too easy, let’s get rid of Saturday delivery.
If I really needed something delivered in a hurry, the USPS could charge for a premium service. What we have now is an anachronism and a huge waste of money and resources. Cutting down the amount of deliveries would save the operation and prevent the inevitable emergency bailout.
The way the Government works, they will probably come up with a Bill that forces FEDEX and UPS to start Saturday Deliveries (with no additional cost) to even the Playing Field.
Really who gives up a rip about mail not being delivered on Saturday BESIDES politicians and union bosses? I’ll bet nobody.
Saturday is a day when I get real mail.
Tuesdays, with rare exception, I get nothing but junk, all of which goes directly into the trash. Tuesday is also the day the trash pickup occurs.
Revenue is down because the Postal Service is typical of any governmental enterprise (if you can call it that) so the answer is to make their services even more horrible than they presently are.
Yep! That’s the key “given them even worse service and they will be crawling to you for even worse service and a premium price and that includes free lost mail, delayed mail and a lot of mail that never reaches it’s destination.
I can’t wait for even more horrible service at even more horrible rates.
I’ve operated a business for more than 40 years and every year their service gets worse.
Where it used to take about one to two minutes to mail a box or letter at the post office, it has stretched over an average of 7 minutes per customer (I’ve made it a point to bring my stopwatch every time I go there).
Also, in this modern age check out how many paper stamps, forms to fill out and the number of rubber stamps they have to place on the package. The best thing to watch is the postman drive up to my business, fill out a whole lot of paperwork in his truck before he can even get out to bring the packages to me. Once there he has the most “GOD AWFUL” device to use to actually make the final delivery once out of his truck.....it’s some type of electronic device from the 1990’s that he has to actually push buttons on like a phone and it’s 50/50 manual input and actual written input on it’s tiny screen.
Once again, I time the delivery person and it averages about 7 minutes once again to actually drive up, deliver the package and drive off.
UPS driver comes up to my business, takes about 1.5 minutes to get the package, walk up to deliver it and return to his truck to make the next delivery.
A flagrant difference between a “for profit” business and one that tries by running customers off.
I’ve been using UPS for my business shipments and deliveries since 1986 and to date, have never experienced a lost package or packet...either shipped or received.
With the postal service I’ve had such bad experiences in both lost mail (or shipments) that I do not allow any shipments from my business via postal service.
Up until the last few years the postal service was somewhat reliable in the delivery of bill payments and invoices to my customers but over the past year I’ve had them not deliver approximately 14 mailed payments that have never arrived to their destination and it’s $20.00 every time I have to cancel payment and pay the late fees involved.
I know, I should use the internet for paying bills or automatic bank transfers but unless you are in business you can do that.
If you have ever been in an IRS audit you can’t even comprehend the misery you bring upon yourself (or business) without a physical “paper trail” that can be physically scrutinized by them. I’ve gone through that HELL and will never do it again for I’ve come to understand that they don’t want you to use the latest technology at all for they live back in the 50’s and they expect you to do the same.
The end result is you have to use the postal service for a majority of bill paying/billing or anything that requires a paper trail. Example: checks with the payee company endorsement on it. Don’t have it, your problem.....period!
I guess you have come to the conclusion that I hate the post service. You are right.
I’m old enough to compare the old EFFICIENT postal service that self-destructed in the late 60’s and early 70’s.
When I first heard discussions of cutting back (a few years now) one option mentioned was eliminating one weekday, Tuesday, I think, and keeping Saturday. ai think that would be better.
-PJ
The volume of mail has gone from a high of 95.9 billion pieces in 2007 to a low of 73.5 billion in 2011. I’ve seen the numbers for the last few years, but can’t find them. Every year has been lower than the last.
We can’t sustain this model from a monetary point of view.
This phrase nicely summarizes the problems with our economy.
The USPS is operating in the red and considering cutting back, and they're discussing savings?