How to Save the Post Office

[Karmadillo]

A nice article on the role of the federal government in creating the crisis facing the Post Office. Fortunately, we now have a Democrat in the White House who can lead the fight to undo the damage.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/05/26-1

Published on Saturday, May 26, 2012 by On the Commons
How the Post Office Is Being Destroyed By a Phony Budget Crisis
Congress, not the post office itself, is the problem
by David Morris

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The solution to the post office financial deficit is simple. Give it back the money Congress, as a result of pressure from the CBO, has stolen from it over the past years. Then make future payments into the health fund for retirees actuarially based.

Once this artificially generated financial noose is removed from the postal service’s neck we can get on with helping it navigate the shoals of an uncertain future. To do this the postal service must build on its two most important assets: its ubiquitous physical infrastructure and the high esteem in which most Americans hold it. In combination, these assets offer the post office an enviable platform upon which to many new revenue-producing services.

But to do this Congress will have to remove another burden imposed by the 2006 law: a prohibition on the postal service offering non-postal services. Like issuing licenses (e.g. drivers, hunting, fishing, etc) or contracting with local and state agencies to provide services. Congress should also lift the prohibition on the post office shipping wine and beer.

In offering new services the USPS could learn from post offices in other countries. The French post office offers banking and insurance services. Remember that from 1911 to 1967 the US Post Office successfully and profitably ran a nationwide postal savings bank. The Swedish post office will physically deliver e-mail correspondence to people who are not online.

more...

[MADem]

1. I frigging LOVE the post office. I relied on it over the years while in uniform.

The DOD arm of the USPS saved my ass on more than one occasion--before "online ordering," before UPS and FEDEX and DSL and all these other "absolutely, positively, have-to-have-it overnight" shippers. It also was a real lifeline back in the days before the internet and affordable phone communications (when you're paying close to a quarter of your salary to speak to your family, RARELY, from the other side of the globe, that can get expensive).

In UK, you can get your MOT sticker (car tax payment) at the Post Office, and a bunch of other stuff, too. I don't know how well state DMVs would cozy up to the idea of a federal employee doing state business, but I imagine there are other non-postal services the USPS could provide that might increase their profit margin and utility while not crossing that state-federal divide.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

2. Post offices in the UK also do banking services

Yes they could offer more services, drivers license etc. and open on Sundays.

[otohara]

10. Japan Also nt

[Rosa Luxemburg]

11. Could be info centers

with computers, tax info, more immigration services besides passports etc.

http://www.royalmail.com/atoz

[on point]

3. They need to get OUT of the business of delivering trash!

Stop trying to sell themselves as the delivery vehicle for advertising garbage that goes from the mailbox straight to the trash!

Raise the rates for this stuff to first class rates same as everyone.

Reduce the infrastructure needs to transport this massive volume of garbage, saving on capital and labor costs that should be focused on delivering mail so they can return to their real mission which needed a much smaller footprint in the past.

[mythology]

8. Except that trash is one of the reasons the postal service became as prevelant as it did.

Henkin's The Postal Age is a really good read on the subject.

Plus the bulk advertising isn't just going into the garbage otherwise it wouldn't be sent any longer.

The postal service's biggest problem is the onerous debt imposed on it with the 75 year pre-funding of pensions. Remove that and the post office will be fine for a number of years into the future.

[braddy]

9. I doubt the advertising pays for itself at the rate that I have to pay for a letter.

If it does, then charge me and Joe junk mail the same rate.

We don't like junk mail, we want it to not be put in our mailboxes, we don't want to be forced to handle it, exam each piece, and discard it, and it kills trees and destroys the environment with all it's inks and glues and paper treatments.

[riderinthestorm]

4. K&R. Great article. nt

[Egalitarian Thug]

5. Or just remove the congressional handcuffs they're shackled with.

The USPS could wipe out UPS, FedEx, and DHL in a week if they weren't forced to subsidize them. Even the absurd pension requirements could be met if the USPS was allowed to do what is best for them, their employees, & their customers.
K&R

[senseandsensibility]

6. K and R

This article should be sent to all congresspeople.

[hay rick]

7. Two points.

1.
The article is good in that it covers the budgetary shenanigans that led from USPS being forced to contribute to benefits for employee's prior military service, which then segued into the escrow fund and which finally turned into a mandate to pre-fund health care benefits. Morris drops the ball when he says the pre-funding obligation should be put on an actuarial basis. If no other government agency or private business has an obligation to pre-fund health benefits, why should the Postal Service? Morris' solution is to weight the victim down with only one cinder block instead of two before throwing it over board.

2.
The OP states "Fortunately, we now have a Democrat in the White House who can lead the fight to undo the damage." Unfortunately, the White House's comments on the issue suggest indifference, at best, to the fate of the Postal Service. The President's approach includes maintaining the pre-funding requirement and repaying only a small portion of the Service's pension over-payments. The White House has also jumped on the 5-day delivery bandwagon.

[senseandsensibility]

12. kick!

Very important info.

[senseandsensibility]

13. Please keep kicked!

eom