"Senate panel offers plan to keep Postal Service afloat; Benefit refund, job cuts may sustain service" November 03, 2011|By Randolph E. Schmid, Associated Press
WASHINGTON - Senators announced a bipartisan plan yesterday to help keep the financially ailing Postal Service solvent and continue six-day mail delivery for at least two more years.
The proposal would lift the agency from the brink of bankruptcy, said Senator Joe Lieberman, chairman of the Senate Homeland and Governmental Affairs Committee.
The Postal Service lost $8 billion last year and could report even larger losses when its 2011 budget year report comes out in mid-November.
“We’re not crying wolf here’’ about the agency, said Senator Susan Collins of Maine, the top Republican on the committee.
Lieberman said next week the committee would take up the proposal, which also would encourage cuts in staffing and refund agency overpayments to the federal retirement system.
The Postal Service said it welcomed the proposal.
Joining in the announcement were Senators Tom Carper, a Delaware Democrat who heads the subcommittee with jurisdiction over the Postal Service, and Scott Brown of Massachusetts, the top Republican on that panel.
A separate overhaul plan sponsored by Representative Darrell Issa, a California Democrat, is awaiting action by the full House. Issa said he looked forward to working with the Senate on resolving postal problems....
“Without taking controversial steps like these, the Postal Service is simply not going to make it, and that would be terrible,’’ Lieberman said.
Related: Lieberman's Love Letters
Mail volume is down 22 percent since 2007, largely because people have switched to the Web to communicate and pay bills. The recession has discouraged advertising mail.
Otherwise known as junk mail.
How many trees were sacrificed for that s*** (or my piece of crap newspaper here), and why does global warming not merit a mention?
“Jobs are at stake,’’ Collins said.
Oh.
The Postal Service is at the center of a $1.1 trillion industry that employs 8.7 million people in direct mail, printing, paper-making, catalog sales, fund-raising, and other businesses....
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As for the short-term fix:
"1st-class stamp will cost 45 cents in January" October 19, 2011|Associated Press
WASHINGTON - It’ll cost a penny more to mail a letter next year.
The cash-strapped US Postal Service announced yesterday that it will increase postage rates on Jan. 22, including a 1-cent increase in the cost of first-class mail, to 45 cents.
Under the law the post office cannot raise prices more than the rate of inflation, which is 2.1 percent, unless it gets special permission from the independent Postal Regulatory Commission. The commission last year turned down such a request.
The Postal Service lost $8 billion in fiscal 2010 and the bottom line is likely to be even worse when final figures for fiscal 2011 are released next month.
The rate increase will make only a small dent in those losses, caused by the recession, movement of mail to the Internet, and a requirement that the agency fund future retiree medical benefits years in advance.
Other proposals to cut losses have included reduction of mail delivery from six to five days a week and closing thousands of offices across the country....
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