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alp227

(31,962 posts)
Wed Apr 17, 2013, 11:08 PM Apr 2013

USPS losing $25 million daily, waiting for Congress to fix ‘broken business model’

By Joe Davidson,

Postmaster General Patrick R. Donahoe entered the Rayburn House Office Building with an entourage a dozen staffers deep. Apparently granted status by association, the aides immediately cut to the front of a long line of regular folks who were waiting patiently, as the polite do, to go through security.

Donahoe and his crew then headed to Room 2154 for a
9:30 a.m. hearing on “Options to Bring the Postal Service Back from Insolvency.” There should have been an “(R)” next to the listing to let the audience know it would be a repeat.

The plot is well known: Donahoe, as did the postmaster before him, makes yet another trip to Capitol Hill to plead for legislative relief that would allow the Postal Service to escape an ever-deepening financial sinkhole. Members of Congress, this time those on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, press the postmaster about cost-cutting measures he has taken or should consider, then call on themselves to take needed action.

The Senate approved postal reform legislation a year ago. The House continues to contemplate, but it is getting closer to a bipartisan deal, promised Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.).

The hearing took four hours, a long time for not much new to be said. This would be boring if it weren’t so serious.

“The Postal Service is currently operating with a broken business model,” Donahoe told the panel. “We are losing $25 million every day and we are on an unsustainable path.”

Last year, the Postal Service lost $15.9 billion, almost seven times its deficit in fiscal 2008.

...

If Donahoe were to defy Congress, said Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (Md.), the top Democrat on the committee, “the postmaster would catch hell.”

The Postal Service announced its about-face a week before the hearing, so Donahoe was spared the rod.

He did get in this dig: “According to this law, we are now required to deliver mail as if it were the year 1983.”

That gets to the crux of the problem. The Postal Service is operating with paper and pencil rules in a digital world. Donahoe said the USPS needs greater flexibility, not just to implement five-day delivery, but also:

■“To develop and price products quickly.”

■“To control our health-care and retirement costs.”

■“To switch to a defined-contribution retirement system for new employees.”

■“To quickly realign our mail processing, delivery and retail networks.”

■“To develop a more streamlined governance model.”

■“And we need more flexibility in the way we leverage our workforce.”

full: http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/federal_government/usps-losing-25-million-daily-waiting-for-congress-to-fix-broken-business-model/2013/04/17/ebfdadde-a799-11e2-a8e2-5b98cb59187f_story.html

Hearing info: http://oversight.house.gov/hearing/options-to-bring-the-postal-service-back-from-insolvency/

(Yes, this hearing was chaired by...Darrell Issa.)

14 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
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USPS losing $25 million daily, waiting for Congress to fix ‘broken business model’ (Original Post) alp227 Apr 2013 OP
Congress? MrSlayer Apr 2013 #1
ditto to Congress? a kennedy Apr 2013 #8
Broken business model is the fault of congress curlyred Apr 2013 #2
how do you fix something that behind the times? mgcgulfcoast Apr 2013 #3
And those businesses that send that mail? They don't count in your world? Ikonoklast Apr 2013 #6
no doubt mgcgulfcoast Apr 2013 #10
USPS is not a for-profit enterprise, it is a public service. bemildred Apr 2013 #4
^ THIS ^ mac56 Apr 2013 #5
The tax payer are on the hook Mail handler Sep 2013 #12
welcome to DU gopiscrap Sep 2013 #13
Postmaster Donohoe can solve his problem with one chart jmowreader Apr 2013 #7
It is not the entire problem. former9thward Apr 2013 #11
is the Pentagon losing a billion dollars a day? Doctor_J Apr 2013 #9
fucking republicans caused this problem on purpose gopiscrap Sep 2013 #14
 

MrSlayer

(22,143 posts)
1. Congress?
Wed Apr 17, 2013, 11:10 PM
Apr 2013

You mean the people that have purposefully started them down the road to dissolution? That congress?

Haha!

mgcgulfcoast

(1,127 posts)
3. how do you fix something that behind the times?
Thu Apr 18, 2013, 08:31 AM
Apr 2013

i would suppose the horse and buggy business was hard to fix once cars were around. people use email now and also pay bills online. basically my mailbox is now a receptacle for junk and sales offers.

Ikonoklast

(23,973 posts)
6. And those businesses that send that mail? They don't count in your world?
Fri Apr 19, 2013, 02:42 PM
Apr 2013

I hate to tell you, but that "junk and sales offers" is *mail*.

bemildred

(90,061 posts)
4. USPS is not a for-profit enterprise, it is a public service.
Fri Apr 19, 2013, 07:57 AM
Apr 2013

It cannot therfore "lose money", since it is not intended to "make money". The best that can be said is that it went over budget or something like that, like the Pentagon does habitually for example, or our "health care" system. The fact that our Congress likes to play imaginary games with it in an effort to gut public support for public services has nothing to do with the USPS, as such.

 

Mail handler

(1 post)
12. The tax payer are on the hook
Thu Sep 19, 2013, 08:58 PM
Sep 2013

The PO has bragged for years that it doesn't take
Taxpayer money. Thousands of small post offices
Need to be closed and consolidated into the larger
Profitable ones. End Saturday delivery and other
Measures will extend the viability of the service.

jmowreader

(50,453 posts)
7. Postmaster Donohoe can solve his problem with one chart
Fri Apr 19, 2013, 06:17 PM
Apr 2013

The entire problem the Postal Service has is the requirement to prefund its pension account.

You need a chart with two lines. One would be the USPS numbers without the pension requirement, the other with it.

former9thward

(31,805 posts)
11. It is not the entire problem.
Sun Apr 21, 2013, 08:20 PM
Apr 2013

Not even most of it. The pre-funding requirement is $5 billion a year. The P.O. is losing $15 billion a year. The P.O. did not even pay the pre-funding "requirement" in 2011 or 2012. Without any penalty or other problems. So it is not really any "requirement".

 

Doctor_J

(36,392 posts)
9. is the Pentagon losing a billion dollars a day?
Sun Apr 21, 2013, 04:57 PM
Apr 2013

They use 40 times as much for which we get nothing.

gopiscrap

(23,674 posts)
14. fucking republicans caused this problem on purpose
Thu Sep 19, 2013, 09:19 PM
Sep 2013

because they want to privatize the mail so some business fucker who's funneling them campaign cash can get even richer

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