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Postal cuts make sense [UPDATED]
Published 9:49am Friday, February 8, 2013 Updated 11:51am Friday, February 8, 2013The announcement earlier this week that the postal service may cut Saturday mail delivery — package delivery would continue through the six days — is a sound business decision by the postal service.
It will mean change, of course, from what we are used to, but with losses of revenue to the tune of $15.9 billion a year, the postal service desperately needs to find a way to staunch the hemorrhage of losses.
There are certainly changes in how postal customers send mail these days. We are using the Internet and email much more than in the past to connect with our loved ones. Even texts sent by cellphone have impacted the postal service. We simply are not sending hand-written letters through the postal service as much anymore.
In fact, although letter sending by mail has decreased significantly, package delivery has increased 14 percent, a reflection of our habits of purchasing off the Internet. Responding to this trend, the postal service will continue package delivery six days a week.
While it is a significant change from what we are used to, the decision shouldn’t impact us that much because we really aren’t using the letter delivery service like we used to. The postal service, though slow in responding to our mailing trend, just makes sense.
If the postal service is so hard up for money, why do they keep making commemorative stamps? It used to be be big business for stamp collectors, but are there any collectors left? Kind of like the government who keeps minting coins that cost more to make than they are worth. That’s government for you!
Under the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act, Congress has for years forced the USPS to pre-fund 75 years’ worth of pensions for its employees, a requirement not made of any other public or private institution. That means that the Postal Service is footing the bill for employees it hasn’t even hired yet.
The Post office gets no money from the government, but needs congressional approval to make any changes. An analysis in July showed that without congressional interference about the pension funding requirements the post office would have a 1.5 billion dollar surplus.
Republicans in congress want to close the Post Office down and privatize mail delivery. Any fool can see what private, for profit, capitalism will do for mail delivery. The low hanging fruit of city delivery will continue but with increased cost and rural delivery will dwindle as the distance from the city gets longer.
Today, people who reside in very rural areas like outside Cooperstown North Dakota get their packages from UPS, Fed X and Speedy Delivery, delivered by the United States Post Office because the “for profit” carriers will not deliver there due to the increased costs and the for profit carriers find it more cost effective to mail their packages with the post office than deliver them themselves. The same thing could not happen with a “for profit” Post Office, so mail delivery to some rural areas would be ended. Citizens would have to drive to adjacent towns to pick up their mail.
If the republicans in congress are successful in privatizing the Post Office you can bet the current employees pensions would go to the new private management and disappear within weeks just as was the case with Amtrak.
It’s always the same with republicans….Socialism for corporations and Capitalism for the workers.
Numerous Post Offices have contracted with UPS and Fedex and other to deliver mail to the USPS sorting centers for final distribution by USPS carriers. The reasons are several, including the fat delivery that way is less expensive than having USPS do it; the other carriers are faster and more efficient than many USPS facilities; pensions, pay, benefits for the alternative carriers come from profits generated by the superior service of their employees, and are more efficiently administered than by the people running the USPS benefits programs. I live outside of town, and receive more packages from FedEx and UPS than USPS, and many packages delivered to us by USPS have labels showing that the original shipper was FedEx or UPS.