Saturday Mail Service May Be Stamped Out

well. there will always be funding crisis until the elected draw a line in the sand and prohibit the world using The United States as thei 911 first call responder for every annoyance.

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how much savings from employee being exempt from all traffic violations ?

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the postal service pays much more share of retirees health insurance than other agencies ? don't they ? like a post master pays 30 cents a quarter for insurance other retires pay 150 bucks weekly ?

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Recently, this argument has been reiterated by the USPS’s chief financial officer, Joseph Corbett, who said the USPS’s “business model, quite frankly, is broken. It doesn’t work for a declining volume scenario.” The argument that the USPS’s business model is “broken” and cannot cover its operating costs without being allowed to enter nonpostal lines of business appears to rest on a fundamental assumption: that over the long run the USPS’s operating costs will continue to outstrip its operating revenues in perpetuity; and that this lag of revenue growth behind cost growth is the result of declining mail volumes (and the resultant revenues). Hence, the need for the USPS to reap revenues by offering new nonpostal services.

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Unfortunately, our business model remains broken, even with the positive pricing and product changes in the new law. With the diversion of messages and transactions to the Internet from the mail, we can no longer depend on printed volume growing at a rate sufficient to produce the revenue needed to cover the costs of an ever-expanding delivery network.

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The USPS argument for the need for greater authority to sell nonpostal services rests on a broader argument—that the USPS’s business model is “broken.” Just four months after the enactment of the PAEA, Postmaster General Potter testified before Congress that, [u]nfortunately, significant changes in the communications and delivery markets have made continued success under the original law problematic. That is why our Nation is fortunate that so many have recognized this and acted to preserve affordable, universal Postal services. I appreciate the efforts of this committee, both houses of Congress, Comptroller General David Walker, the administration, and the President’s Commission on the U.S. Postal Service. It is my hope that 30 years from today a future Postmaster General will sit at this table and report on the progress made possible by the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006.

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meaning that the USPS had to make a large annual payment that neither provided operational benefits nor generated revenues

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Finally, passage of the Postal Civil Service Retirement System Funding Reform Act of 2003 (PCSRSFRA; P.L. 108-18; 117 Stat. 624) helped sow the seeds for reform. The PCSRSFRA was enacted after it was discovered that the USPS was over-funding its retirees’ pensions. The act reduced the USPS’s pension outlays. However, it shifted the costs of postal employees’ military service-related pension costs from the U.S. Treasury to the USPS—a $27 billion obligation. The PCSRSFRA also required much of the reduction from the previous pension outlay levels to be put toward lowering the USPS’s debt and funding an escrow account. The law did not, however, dedicate the escrow fund to any particular use (e.g., postal worker benefits),

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Additionally, the USPS, its board of governors, the Government Accountability Office (GAO), mailers’ organizations, postal labor unions, and most recently a presidential commission said that the Postal Reorganization Act of 1970 no longer provided a viable business model. The ratesetting process was criticized for preventing the USPS from responding quickly to an increasingly competitive marketplace. Critics also argued that long-standing political and statutory restrictions impeded efforts to modernize the mail processing network and close unneeded facilities.

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Source: Congressional Research Service report 12/14/2009. The Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act: Overview and Issues for Congress

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A number of factors encouraged the movement for postal reform. Perhaps foremost were the financial challenges of the USPS. First class mail use was declining as customers substituted electronic alternatives, such as e-mail and online bill paying, for hard-copy letters. Yet the USPS’s costs—about 76% of which were labor-related—rose with the addition of 2 million new addresses each year and mounting obligations for USPS future retiree health benefits.

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A decade later, Congress enacted the PAEA, which made over 150 changes to postal law. Some of the more significant alterations are defining the term “postal service”; restricting the USPS’s authority to provide nonpostal services; altering the USPS’s budget submission process; requiring the USPS to prefund its future retiree health benefits by establishing the Postal Service Retiree Health Benefits Fund; and replacing the USPS’s regulator, the Postal Rate Commission, with the more powerful Postal Regulatory Commission.

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Legislatively, the pursuit of reform of the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) began during the 104th Congress, in 1996. A number of factors encouraged the movement for postal reform. Perhaps foremost were the financial challenges of the USPS.

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Creamed,

"Tell us, rocket scientist, WHERE DOES THE MONEY COME FROM to run the USPS when it has a DEFICIT every year??????"

Sure, let them GO PRIVATE and see who invests in their multibillion NEGATIVE CASH FLOW BUSINESS!

Just answer the question or STFU!

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it is a money loser. the postman always reports any new concrete work done on weekend to the tax accessor.

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we need to ban those cards anyway. the put a guilt trip on you and you are frced to put money inside for people you don't really like much at all. Never send cards with checks when you are drunk.

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actually. if you banned importation of Holiday and special occasion cards from China, the postal service would have no reason to exist.

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WVcoughie, Solyndra doesn't deliver mail either any more, but they still ran off with a half BILLION of our tax money.

Well, maybe not YOUR tax money but ....

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Creamed, BWAHAHAAH! They ONLY lost $2.4 BILLION instead of 7 BILLION?????

Do you have a freaking CLUE what you are babbling about?

Tell us, rocket scientist, WHERE DOES THE MONEY COME FROM to run the USPS when it has a DEFICIT every year??????

Anybody who says USPS doesn't get funding from the taxpayer is FULL of IT!!!

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Obamacare: QUIT while you are ahead!

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Greeceman, they are asking for BILLIONS in loans to cover their red ink.

Loans from WHOM??? Banks will not loan that kind of money to a LOSER like the USPS.

ONLY JOHN Q TAXPAYER will get stuck with their FAIL!

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No spending cuts in the near future! Every politician has his/her "own" little pet projects....

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I/m dumb. How will this save money? Unless those who worked on Sat will no longer be getting paid. How does the Postal Workers Union feel about this.

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Tired of waiting for Congress to act, the USPS Board of Governors continues to implement its own plan for restructuring the business model of the USPS. It claims that because the federal government has not passed a budget with appropriations and specific language that the postal service must deliver mail six days a week, but is rather operating via Continuing Resolutions, that the language concerning six day delivery no longer applies.

It is due to the in-action of Congress that postal officials feel the need to attempt to save itself!

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"Republican House Speaker John Boehner said Wednesday, "I think trying to act in this postal area is pretty difficult. But I understand where the postal commission is coming from. They're in charge with running the post office, but yet the Congress, in its wisdom, has tied their hands every which way in order for them to actually run the post office in a revenue neutral way."

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