The plan adopted by the U.S. Senate to address the Postal Service’s serious financial problems falls short of the reform really needed to make the agency solvent.
Even worse, it will actually hamper efforts by the Postal Service’s management to radically overhaul its operations, a necessity for an agency losing $25 million a day.
We think the House should reject much of the plan and adopt more robust budget-balancing strategies favored by management of the struggling agency.
It’s a sad day when politicians won’t allow a bureaucracy to downsize as it sees fit in order to be more efficient.
To be sure, the Senate plan does include some reductions. It allows the USPS to cut staff by 100,000 over the next three years, with most of those coming through early retirement.
And it does cut some of the debt that the Postal Service owes to the Treasury. But overall, the Congressional Budget Office estimates the Senate bill would increase the federal deficit by $6.3 billion during the next decade.
Furthermore, it delays the end of Saturday home delivery for at least two more years, and the closure of thousands of rural post offices for a year.
You might be wondering why federal lawmakers have anything to do with the nuts and bolts of operating the semi-autonomous government mail delivery service.
The U.S. Constitution gave Congress the power “to establish Post Offices and post Roads.”
In 1800, the service’s records, furniture and supplies all fit into two horse-drawn wagons when the headquarters moved from Philadelphia to Washington D.C.
Today, the agency has 574,000 employees, 215,625 vehicles and processes 23 million pieces of mail per hour. It is a behemoth. However, as Americans have turned to digital forms of communication, it has struggled.
The folks at the USPS have taken seriously the mission to reform the agency. In February, they proposed a five-year plan to reduce costs by $20 billion.
The agency should be allowed to hew more closely to its plan, and we’re disappointed that Colorado Sens. Mark Udall and Michael Bennet, both Democrats, supported the Senate plan, particularly the piece that delays rural post office closures.
Rep. Cory Gardner, R-Yuma, also has taken issue with closing rural post offices. To his credit, Rep. Mike Coffman, R-Aurora, is on board with closures, as well as other reforms.
Certainly, closing under-utilized post offices is a serious issue for areas where such entities are seen as the “heart” of the community. But the closures also are an important piece of what should be a broad strategy to make the USPS more lean and efficient.
Ultimately, its future will depend upon whether it can recalibrate and adapt to changing ways of delivering information. Congress wouldn’t be doing the Postal Service any favors by delaying that transformation.
