Related: The End of the AmeriKan Government
"Postal chief calls agency 'critical'; Congress must help pay bills, Potter warns" by Associated Press | March 26, 2009
WASHINGTON - Postmaster General John Potter said yesterday that the financially strapped US Postal Service will run out of money this year without help from Congress.
Not one damn dime. Get rid of the goldbrickers (I know some), especially with the volume down. I quit renting a box because the cost when up $8/year for two straight years for nothing but an unimproved hole in the wall.
The only lingering question, Potter told a House subcommittee, is which bills will get paid and which will not. He said ensuring the payment of workers' salaries comes first. But Potter also said other bills may have to wait.
Tell it to the bank.
Potter's appearance came as the agency, which has lived on a reputation of serving through wind, rain, and all sorts of obstacles, seeks permission to reduce mail delivery to five days a week. It also wants to change the way retiree health benefits are amassed to save money.
"We are facing losses of historic proportion," he said. "Our situation is critical."
The Postal Service was $2.8 billion in the red last year and is facing even larger losses this year due to a sharp decline in mail volume in the weak economy. Potter broached the possibility of cutting mail delivery from six days to five in January, but the idea has not been warmly received in Congress....
Nor here.
"We are not here today to ask for a taxpayer bailout, but we are here to ask the Congress for help," William Young, president of the National Association of Letter Carriers, said in his prepared testimony.
Except that they are here today to ask for a taxpayer bailout!"
Pffffffftttt!!!
"At this moment, the survival of the Postal Service - a venerable institution that is literally older than our country - hangs in the balance," he added.
Then maybe it should die.
Even if the agency succeeds in reaching its planned cost cuts of $5.9 billion, there could still be a $6 billion deficit in 2010, Potter told the House Oversight Subcommittee on the Federal Work Force and Postal Service. "Without a change we will exhaust our cash resources," Potter said. "We can no longer afford business as usual."
Maybe if we reign back the empire you can get a cut.
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Last week the Postal Service announced that it planned to offer early retirement to 150,000 workers and is eliminating 1,400 management positions and closing six of its 80 district offices across the country in cost-cutting efforts.
Dan Blair, head of the independent Postal Regulatory Commission, suggested in his testimony that other savings could be realized through closing small and rural post offices, something Congress has resisted in the past. He added that it may be necessary to increase the limit on the amount of debt the Postal Service can carry....
Once again, it COMES BACK to BANKS!!!!!!!
Officials said the recession has contributed to a mail volume drop of 5.2 billion pieces compared to the same period last year. If there is no economic recovery, the USPS projects volume for the year will be down by 12 billion to 15 billion pieces of mail. Over the past year the Postal Service has cut 50 million work hours, stopped construction of new facilities, frozen salaries for executives, began selling unused facilities, and has cut post office hours.
Yeah, meanwhile CNN reports they were Postal Service buying homes like crazy, and yet the Globe tells me NOTHING about that!!!
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