The Future Of The U.S. Postal Service
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2012-08-01/future-us-postal-service
The U.S. Postal Service owes the Treasury Department $5.5 billion. The bill is due today, but the postal agency cannot make the payment. Nothing will happen in the near term: Post offices will not shut down overnight, and people will still be able to send letters and packages through the mail. But the default underscores not only the financial woes plaguing the nation's mail system but also dysfunction in a partisan Congress, which controls the Postal Service. Some say privatizing the mail agency is the only way to stanch the flow of red ink. Others blame Congress' requirement to pre-fund postal retirees' health benefits. The future of the U.S. Postal Service.
Guests
Fredric Rolando
president of the National Association of Letter Carriers.
Lisa Rein
national reporter for The Washington Post, covering the federal workforce.
Tad Dehaven
budget analyst for The Cato Institute.
Comments
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I don't know where you live, but the main post office in my area is so short staffed that you will wait for a long time to get to the one window that is open. Too many workers - I don't think so. They have let so many carriers go that my mail now comes sometimes as late as 6 pm because our carrier, who is very conscientious, now delivers for what used to be one and a half routes.
Let's just privatize everything. Look at the great job the Pepco did after the storm, for-profit hospitals have done for health care and a private security firm did the summer olympics. I use the USPS everyday as part of my business. They do a wonderful job. Just fix the retirement mandate.
Sammy Bisquit
Why has the prepayment of the pension not been more publicized? I have heard this on various programs on NPR but never nationalized.
This is another way to have the USPS look bad and privatize that will service corporate america.
What a joke
Thank you
Why does the Post Office have to make money. Does the Coast Gaurd make money. Does the Army make money? Its a government service. Its in the Constitution. Change the Constitution.
A Congressperson’s signature serves as postage on any envelope. So why would they care about the Postal Service? They can send out thousands of mailers for free.
Why is it that these same so called conservatives don't mind all these corporations such as the oil industry being subsidized by the tax payer?
I would like to note that the Federal Mine Safety and Health Administration delievers citations and other information to mine operators using FedEx. I can't imagine that FedEx costs LESS than using the Postal Service.
How about an "opt out" of junk mail option? I don't believe the taxpayer should be funding a system advertising that is forced on people. How can I stop the junk mail from arriving at my house?
I had a job analyzing energy usage with a private company which put me behind the scene at several post offices. Those people work their buns off. Post offices are so short staffed now that one person is doing the work of two. I've seen first hand how "hard" those people work.
This is a political issue, from the very beginning. The onerous pre-funding was done by the lame-duck Republican Congress in Dec.2006, by a weasely voice vote (no accountability) to help pay for Bush' illegitimate wars. The objective of conservatives, including propagandist Ted from the Cato, to crush the working class, especially unions. He is using the typical argument that public servants are getting more than folks in the private sector. This is the opposite of the questions that should be asked: it should be "Why aren't workers in the private sector getting the same health and retirement benefits".
Mr. Ted says that people choose to live in rural areas. He is out of touch. We live in rural New Mexico, where ranch families (you know, the ones who feed the country) have lived on their ranches for generations and struggle to keep the ranches in the family,
We don't get mail delivered; we have to go into the P.O. and pick up our mail. Sometimes UPS leaves items at our P.O.
Of course, Ted is all about union / bashing, despite his denials.
The first nail in the Post Office coffin was privatizing parcel post.
Also, this means now four or so trucks now deliver each day what one used to do just as well.
That the Postal Service should be created by Congress is mandated in the Constitution!!
Conservative advocates of privatizing government and quasi-government functions are using Congress's power over the Postal Service to destroy it for their own ideological ends! That is really what is happening here.
Your guest from the Cato Institute acts as if the Postal Service should go away as a public service because the concept seems "outdated" to him. Does the same guest think that other parts of our U.S. Constitution are also outdated and should be dismissed?
Good Morning Diane, postal service could consider the following, 1)
delivery three days a week and increase rates on specific advertising days of the week. 2) Sell the right to private companies to place material - ads into the mailbox without having to utilize the postal service delivery system. This would allow shorter delivery lead times for advervising and traditional newspaper circulars. 3) kill the current proposal from Valassas for discounted special rates as it will increase cost to the postal service while decreasing profit. Combine with UPS / FED Ex as we have three different services all covering the same ground except two out of the three do not have the safty net of the US goverment.
Thanks
What happened to door to door delivery and the postmaster generals promise of overnight delivery (1976). I live in the fastest growing community in Alabama and have been refused a box by my door because There were once rural routes in the area. I'm in a row house not a mini farm with a gate.
I 'd rather eliminate Wednesday delivery and get the bills of the week by Saturday.
Name the nine of ten times.
So the tax payers should subsidize instead the private companies that are going to utilize a structure created and organized by the government? And the customers would benefit? Where does Mr. Dehaven gets his really novel and creative ideas? This seems to be the same trite recipe the Cato Institute is promoting.
The postal service is successful and could be even more so.
A novel idea? The postal service could be transformed into a postal worker run cooperative.
"I don't understand the person who said he gets only one or two pieces of mail per day. "
I do. I often go several days without getting mail. A lot depends on how many mailing lists you let yourself get on. Over the years I've reduced my exposure.
Your guests that are proponents of the USPS dismantle are not concerned about people but continued commerce that benefits the private sector. They see and smell dollar signs...period. Let me choose my service, what a hoax!
They will fail to deliver, send people into the abyss of a digital no mans zone that is fraught with virus's and failures that will create billions in losses and profits to maintained, and eliminate already needed jobs.
The scales will be balanced by loss and success ratios and justified by computer models that tell us that reliability is just a matter of more dollars per week out of our pockets.
Instead of simply allowing the USPS to join UPS and FED-X and be competitive....I smell a lobbying rat!!!!
PRIVATIZATION OF THE USPS IS UNCONSTITUTIONAL, IS A BAD IDEA, AND MAY WELL INDICATE THE EXISTENCE OF A COERCIVE WAR AGAINST THE U.S.A.
Postal service is required by The Constitution (Article 1, Section 8, Clause 7) as are interstate postal roadways and their management. Our founding fathers had the foresight to see that communication was critical to the Republic.
On so many fronts and at so many levels there is a movement to dismantle Government via "privatization", which in effect is to decentralize governmental functions into the hands of private corporate hands, including by the way privatization of the military.
Control of Communication, Transportation, and the Military are key strategic aspects of waging war. This is the case in wars between nations, and it is also the case in power struggles within nations.
Could the USPS function better? Yes. Could costs be managed better? Possibly. But, can the value, importance, and existence of the USPS be allowed to be undermined to the point of extinction? I say, "No!"
Neither should we allow the continuing trend towards our two-tiered mercenary military system ("All Volunteer Military" and "Contract Military"). And we should rebuild, redesign, and improve all levels of public transportation.
Failure to attend to these three strategic pillars of national integrity can only pervert and balkanize the USA.
Postal carriers have a key role in response to a bioterrorism incident. They are expected to deliver prophylactic antibiotics to the doorsteps of homes in the endangered area on an emergency basis. I wonder what the union's position is on this potentially hazardous task? Was this strategy arrived at with the consent of the letter carriers and will they perform when everyone else is cautioned to remain indoors?
Just Google: "woman saved by letter carrier" for examples of one of the unintended benefits of universal service.
Congrats Rick....so does that mean you don't need mail at all?
I'm wondering of you really believe that your costs would actually come down if you say had once a week delivery? And how would you measure it anyway?
As always, I enjoyed the show today. However I was surprised that the fact that Congress is required to establish Post Offices by the Constitution wasn't addressed. How can the Congress get rid of one of their responsibilities without an amendment to the Constitution? The applicable section is in Article 1, Section 8 Congressional Powers "to establish Post Offices and post Roads". Keep up the great work!
No we will E mail it to them...
Correct 100%....this is social war at it's finest. But becareful we don't want pure socialism either.
About the elderly living in remote areas that would be impacted by eliminating the PO as we now know it:
There are ways to ameliorate this problem. Gov. can hire an unemployed person to deliver it to the elderly on a contract-like basis -- or a let a meals-on-wheels person who is probably already visiting the elderly person also deliver the mail.
And THREE days per week is MORE than enough mail delivery for anybody!
(BTW, I'm 67 and boy - do I LOVE automatic bank deductions for most of my bills! What a relief from the old days of check writing. I also love keeping in contact with friends by email. Welcome, technology!)
I respectfully take exception to the guest's comment that people choose to live in rural areas. At least west of the Mississippi that is not entirely the case. I won't even try to guess how many of us live where we work -- on farms and ranches. Those who work on those farms and ranches live close to their place of employment. When I grew up in western Nebraska, it is 63 miles to the nearest town. It is just under four miles to the highway where the mailbox is located. How then do you justify taking away rural delivery? That is the extreme, but not that unusual.
I've retired and let my sons run the spread and live in an urban community. I don't mind walking the 400 feet to the mailbox, and don't care what the weather.
Point is, don't make generalizations based on false assumptions. There is still a significant population that live and work in rural areas, not by choice.
All this is irrelevant, we will just keep adding to the national debt to pay for unneeded, over paid government employees until no one will buy our treasury bonds. Despite all the "you didn't build that the government did", we will find out who built what when the cash cow the private sector is destroyed by the parasites living off the private sector tax payers.
why is the current $45 billion pre-fund not enough?
The postal service provides a lot of services besides just delivering the mail. Right now they are doing Passport interviews; what happens if they shut down? Are they being paid now by the State Department to provide this service? I haven't been able to find out.
Who is it who notices that the 86 year old woman in the neighborhood isn't getting her mail and alerts the police? How many lives have been saved by postal workers who knew the neighbors on their routes?
Also, is the federal government and the states going to be relying on private carriers to run carry their mail? Is Congress going to start paying for its mailings to constituents (for purely non-political purposes, of course)?
"The congressional franking privilege, which dates from 1775, allows Members of Congress to transmit mail matter under their signature without postage."