Free Republic

The nation's largest mail-carriers union wants the U.S. Postal Service to raise stamp prices and expand mail delivery. In a report to be released Tuesday, it sharply criticizes the agency's own rescue plan and argues the Postal Service will become profitable only if it restructures itself like a business. Labor groups, for instance, generally oppose cuts to service. The mailing industry opposes higher postage fees. Many legislators say the Postal Service needs to close facilities—but not in their district. And a Republican-led bill set to be heard by the full House looks askance at any proposal that would allow the...

The U.S. Postal Service wants small businesses to send more direct mail, a.k.a. junk mail, to help the beleaguered agency expand its revenue stream by hundreds of millions of dollars. In a campaign called "Every Door Direct Mail," the Postal Service is touting a year-old online tool to help small businesses micro-target direct mail. The Web tool allows firms to tap customers by neighborhood or zip code without names or addresses. The Postal Service reported a $5.1 billion loss for the year ended Sept. 30. The loss was caused by an ongoing decline in its core revenue driver, regular letters...

...As a government-run organization, the Post Office is isolated from the innovation of marketplace competition. Unlike its private sector competitors, the Postal Service does not pay the corporate income tax, is exempt from anti-trust laws, and is advantaged by unique customer access opportunities such as having mailboxes on the street. Despite these legal protections, USPS spends in the red while generously paying employee benefits above and beyond levels for other federal workers. While postal workers only pay 21 percent of health care costs and none of their life insurance premiums, federal workers pay 28 percent of healthcare costs and are...

U.S. Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe has said that the United States Postal Service will default on its obligations to the federal government on September 30, at the end of the current fiscal year. Now the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform has launched a website to educate the public about the Postal Service’s financial troubles and some possible solutions. The Postal Service lost $8.5 billion in the last fiscal year. Oversight committee chairman Rep. Darrell Issa, Republican from California, and other committee members have said the result will likely be a taxpayer bailout.

Americans would rather see the U.S. Postal Service dramatically cut its workforce and reduce mail delivery to three or four days a week than have the government pour more money into the financially struggling agency. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that 50% of American Adults believe the federal government should allow the Postal Service to lay off the estimated 120,000 workers it needs to reduce its current losses rather than provide the agency with additional subsidies to cover those losses. Thirty-three percent (33%) think the government should provide subsidies to cover the agency’s losses, estimated at $8...