Mail Delivery Days May Need To Be Cut

[Boats]

If we don't let them go to 5-days they will raise the stamps again. Wife has said many times that we only get mail 2-3 days a week the last few months. So going to 5-days a week for delivery - only means we will get mail every 2-3 days a week.

They will cut cost and manhours by going to 5-days and hopefully the stamp cost won't go up again???

[splummer]

Especially for Fred. The Postal Service does not rely on any Goverment Taxes. Their income is only from the postage they sell on stamps, packages and etc. As enefficent as the higher up Postal management runs every little detail, it still is about the only Goverment agency that works. Let me repeat this: YOU DO NOT PAY TAXES FOR THE POSTAL SERVICE. Its self suffencent.

[exlrrp]

Originally Posted by splummer

Especially for Fred. The Postal Service does not rely on any Goverment Taxes. Their income is only from the postage they sell on stamps, packages and etc. As enefficent as the higher up Postal management runs every little detail, it still is about the only Goverment agency that works. Let me repeat this: YOU DO NOT PAY TAXES FOR THE POSTAL SERVICE. Its self suffencent.

Thanks for the true facts, splum
In that case I revert to my original statement: such a deal!
Can be frustrating tho

[splummer]

It was such a frustrating place to work. The higher management would have the same policy's [tell us how to deliver mail] for the entire country even though each region or route is different . The rear wheel drive delivery truck may work ok in Florida but it gets stuck all the time in the snow in Minnesota. My truck as most others, was 25 years old. I think the reason we are still able to mail a letter for 42 cents is because of their income from all that junk mail you get and not having to pay taxes in the years when they have a profit. The Unions have said for years that the PO should go to a 5 day delivery. It would save a lot on labor but also just gas alone. Busness has stopped the 5 day delivery idea in the past and I think they will this time too. [I'VE BROKEN MY VOW OF SILENCE NOW ON THE PATRIOT FILES] Darn

[SuperScout]

If there wasn't a law that banned 1st Class Mail being delivered by UPS and/or FedEx and/or another profitable carrier, I wonder how much more the USPS volume wold decrease? I say let the marketplace decide who does a better deal, by leveling the playing field. Let FedEx etc sell 1st class stamps and deliver 1st class mail. If the junk mail mailers want to pay to have their junk mail delivered, why don't they pay the same rates as 1st class? It costs just as much to drive the mail truck down my country road to deliver a 1st class letter as it does that pile of crap that I throw away unopened anyway. The USPS is another 'private' agency like FannieMae and FreddieMac, and is operated with just about the same level of ethics.

Privatize or die.

[splummer]

I can't really argue with you on that. I didn't know there was a law stopping Fed X from delivering 1st class mail. They have over night mail deliveries etc. Where I think the playing field is not level is that UPS and Fed X etc pay income tax on their profits but the PO doesn't. We workers [xworkers] thought that the PO should charge junk mailers more money like you said. Only, the volume of the junk mail [income]and not being subject to taxes probably keeps the 1st class rate down. [The junk mail volume kind of subsidizes the 1st class] I think it would be higher with UPS-FedX than our present 42cents a letter because of those reasons. You don't think 42cents is too much money to mail a letter do you???? Why am I talking about this? I retired from there last year and I'm still trying to forget.

[1CAVCCO15MED]

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President's budget proposed only $37 million for USPS --and not the $779 million as requested
posted February 10, 2004-

According to the Wall Street Journal, lawmakers are debating whether the U.S. postal system lacks the funds to install sufficient safeguards to cope with terrorist attacks. After the anthrax attacks of 2001, which killed five people, including two postal workers, the U.S. Postal Service hired contractors to install irradiation equipment designed to neutralize anthrax spores. But deployment has been limited to mail intended for government offices. Although the U.S. Postal Service has spent more than $500 million on biodefense since the anthrax attacks, it hasn't attached anthrax biosensors to the equipment. Nor has it begun to roll out a planned expansion of the irradiation system to cover mail delivered to most of the 128 million homes and 12 million businesses in the U.S.

The president's budget for the fiscal year that starts Oct. 1, unveiled on Tuesday, proposed only $37 million for the Postal Service, far short of the $779 million for biodefense requested by the agency. It has vowed to go directly to Congress to seek these funds, including $384 million in reimbursement for money already spent out of its own revenue. A spokesman for House Appropriations Committee Chairman Bill Young (R., Fla.), said that, as a rule, Congress tends to be "very reluctant" to provide direct appropriations to an agency that's "supposed to be self-sustaining." Ira Cohen, spokesman for Rep. Danny Davis (D., Ill.), said his boss favored more funding in the 2005 budget to upgrade biodefense in the postal system. "If you're going to give the Postal Service the added responsibilities of homeland-security issues, why should that be financed" out of Postal Service revenues, he said. Rep. Davis is a member of the Government Reform Committee, which has been considering a Postal Service revamp.

While the ricin scare renewed focus on the postal system, experts pointed out that while irradiating equipment could play a role in neutralizing anthrax, it wouldn't neutralize an inert poison such as ricin. Sensitive to any suggestion that the agency is dragging its feet, the Postal Service insists its terrorism-fighting efforts aren't falling behind. "We are right on schedule," said Thomas Day, vice president of engineering at the Postal Service. He also said the agency will try to find more money for biohazard-detection equipment even if Congress doesn't provide funds. "We are still committed to doing it, and it would have to come from our operating funds," he said. A protracted funding logjam could trigger the shutdown of some mail processing and distribution centers in order to reduce the overall cost of additional detection equipment. But any move toward widespread closings is likely to face fierce opposition from the unions that represent most of the Postal Service's 750,000 employees.

Postal officials also could shift a bigger chunk of security costs to anyone who mails a letter or package. The Postal Service is expected to start seeking approval in early 2005 for its next rate increase, which would take effect about a year later. Consumers and businesses already have been hit by three rate increases

[1CAVCCO15MED]

GOVERNMENT WATCHDOG LAMBASTES POSTAL BAILOUT, EXECUTIVE BONUSES

Washington, D.C. - The Council for Citizens Against Government Waste (CCAGW) today lambasted Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Robert Byrd's (D-W.Va.) decision to give the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) $875 million in bailout money without requiring it to initiate long-overdue reform measures.

In addition, CCAGW blasted USPS for paying out bonuses. Though the Washington Post has reported that executive bonuses for 2001 will be $124.5 million, the actual number is $164.1 million.

"It doesn't surprise me that there are already conflicting numbers out there. Postal managers are clearly mathematically challenged. Either way, taking bonuses while they are riding a $1.7 billion loss and panhandling for a taxpayer bailout is unconscionable," stated CAGW Vice President Leslie K. Paige.

"The USPS is seeking billions in government handouts this year without first committing to reform and streamlining," Paige said. "This agency was hemorrhaging cash this year even before September 11 and the anthrax mailings."

"In fact, many of the postal service's recent expenditures merit scrutiny by Congress in light of the troubling testimony postal management gave before the U.S. Senate on November 8," Paige also said. "Aside from the $1.6 billion lost to waste, fraud, and mismanagement already documented by the USPS Office of Inspector General, it is difficult to reconcile the postal service's bailout requests with its new slick, multi-million television advertising campaign. Also troubling is that postal management has yet to offer a single substantive proposal to streamline its operations, reduce unnecessary costs, institute a hard hiring freeze, or eliminate money-losing ventures."

"These folks simply do not get it. This is not the first time they have chosen to reward themselves with hundreds of millions of dollars in executive bonuses while operating in the red," Paige added. "Between 1996 and 2000, the USPS gave out more than $1.4 billion in bonuses, including $284 million last year, when it lost money."

"There will never be reform at USPS until someone ties government dollars to new management," Paige concluded. "The current crew has presided over a financial debacle while avoiding hard choices and rejecting any serious change."

CCAGW is the lobbying arm of Citizens Against Government Waste, the nation's largest taxpayer advocacy group with over one million members and supporters nationwide. It is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, mismanagement and abuse in government.

[SuperScout]

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama, who has ordered a pay freeze on six-figure White House aides, wants to talk to Wall Street executives about a report indicating payments of over $18 billion in bonuses as the economy was in virtual free fall.

"It is shameful," Obama said from the Oval Office Thursday. "And part of what we're going to need is for the folks on Wall Street who are asking for help to show some restraint, and show some discipline, and show some sense of responsibility."

OK, now howzabout blasting the USPS for paying bosnues to a bunch of losers? You want to whine and moan about private business and their excesses, but the same standard should apply across the board. But you, The Bastard, won't do it because, (1) you're a gutless wonder, (2) you're beholden to the unions, including the postal workers union, and (3) you don't have a clue about what really going on.

[Arrow]

On the side of the mail carrier. A lot of vets have gone to work for the PO and somehow it always made me feel better just knowing they were around the neighborhoods where I lived over the years.

Some years back my mailbox was broken into and I decided to get a PO Box. I made a list of all those that needed to have my new address the bank, DOD, VA, Insurance etc as the PO only delivered to the mailbox for so many months after you open a PO box. They then return to sender. I completely forgot about telling most everyone else.

Here comes Christmas time and there is knock on my door late afternoon. I open the door and there stands the mailman running late that day because of bad weather. He has in his hand mail with my street address and on the return address DMZ-LT. That's it. Just DMZ-LT. The mailman looks at me and says "I thought this might be important." Although he was under no obligation to deliever it he did anyway. The first thing I ask him, Are you a Veteran? Yes, he says. Vietnam? Yes. Then he told me where and gave me a brief bio and I told him about the LT and Bill and he was off to finish his rounds.

We didn't talk much after that but to say "How ya doin,fine, how you doin, fine". Waved at each other when we passed each other on the road. He retired last year. And I miss seein' him around. I felt better when he was in the neighborhood. So Steve think about that when you think about your job. I'm betting someone is misssin' you too. All the best... Sis