The National League of Postmasters is continuing to monitor the deal making and political maneuvering of all sorts continued over the weekend. The postal bill and amendments are scheduled to go to a vote tomorrow, Tuesday around 2:15 p.m., although that time could easily change. It will be cablecast on CSPAN 2. I would not be surprised to see some postal speeches on the floor today, although the votes will be tomorrow.
At this point, the number of amendments have decreased to 39 and rewriting is ongoing in order to make amendments more palatable to a broader group. Indeed, several amendments might be combined and offered up by unanimous consent. We also we expect some senators to back off of some of the other amendments. Don’t be surprised, then, when Tuesday rolls around, to see a narrower field of amendments.
The sentiment for protecting rural post offices remains strong and I would expect an even further improvement in some amendments.
Sen. John McCain continues to insist that he will offer his version of the Rep. Darrell Issa bill as an amendment in the nature of a substitute, and it should be first up. Should that amendment pass and thus should the Senate bill become like the Issa bill, the Postal Service would be finished. We have asked key Postmasters to weigh in with some targeted senators on this issues.
Understand that the approach behind the Issa bill and the McCain amendment is not predicated upon the possibility of a healthy, vigorous postal system thriving into the 21st Century, serving the postal industries as we know it. Rather, it assumes that volume will continue to plummet and that there is no need to have a broad national network capable of sustaining (at reasonable rates) the type of volumes we need in order to support a healthy advertising industry, and a broad delivery network for internet purchases.
That approach bought the Postal Service’s line that it spun to Congress that the precipitous volume drop of the last several years was not due to the recession but due to electronic diversion (a point of view that is completely inconsistent with what the Postal Service has told the Postal Regulatory Commission). That approach also assumes that volume drops will continue, one after another, until most of the volume disappears and that only a small residual postal system is necessary. That is exactly the mentality of many of the Hill staff that pushes this position. Not only is the approach simply wrong, but it lacks a fundamental understanding of the mailing industry.
Well let me start by saying that you are correct that the Issa or McCain bill will destroy the USPS, they have a few provisions that makes sense but on the whole are dreadful. First class mail is on the decline for several reasons and electronic communication is the biggest. If we don’t make reasonable changes we will go bankrupt period. Now the other major factors that are adding to our demise are a deep recession, high fuel costs and bad legislation. Mail volume because of the first factor will continue to decline and is exasperated by the other factors as well.
Now is a good time for us to get our house in order, first is addressing the nonsensical 5.5 billion a year mandate as Senator Leiberman has, both reducing it by 20% and spreading it out over a more sensible 40 years.
Next step ought to be reducing the national areas to four, they are redundant and have the highest labor rates in the USPS while offering little or nothing in actually moving the mail. This could potentially reduce upper middle management by a third.
Next all letter carriers need to be moved to a rural carrier type system, which will have several benefits, fixing and reducing labor costs, reducing labor disputes that are very expensive. Reducing the number of supervisors required to micro manage employees. last reducing stress on the carriers who are micromanaged to a ridiculous level.
Next rural Post offices instead of being eliminated could be operated 50% of the time with pick ups daily.
Processing plants that truly aren’t needed could be closed one at a time, only after first demonstrating in practice that the gaining plant can maintain delivery standards. Only after this process is complete for a plant could the USPS start on another for the gaining plant. This will make the transition seemless to our customers, the plan the PMG was enacting borders on the insane and would have crashed and destroyed the USPS.
Next the obvious deliver mail 5 days a week, except December we simply don’t have the volume to warrent 6 day delivery. This will save billions between labor and fuel expenses. The surveys of the American public indicate they overwhelmingly accept 5 day delivery and thats what counts. Besides if for some unseen reason mail volume increases it would not be difficult to return to 6 day delivery.
A proper investigation needs to be conducted as to the actual amount of overpayment into CSRS and the correct amount should be applied towards our obligations. Some shamefully call that a bail out, no if we didn’t owe that money it is rightfully ours. Who calls their tax refund a bail out??? I have read the GAO report and we are getting shafted, they contradict themselves and play it both ways, even arguing that we shouldn’t get our own funds returned because we are in financial troubles? That would be like your boss saying I know you worked for us but since I don’t think you are going to use your check the correct way were not paying you? Really.
Last John McCain and Darryl Issa as well as all political agencies, no more free mail at our expense you pay like everybody else. You know we are lazy and overpaid and obsolete anyway so use e-mail or pay. BTW we operate on postage not taxes unlike Congress, postal employees are tax payers not users we don’t add to the national debt we reduce it, just saying there is some pretty nasty things being said about us by people who are not in a position to do so. They wan’t to violate contracts and also lay off employees (that should help the economy). We weren’t allowed to strike and never did in return we were protected from layoffs. As a genuine conservative Issa and McCain embarass me. John McCain how about we don’t pay you retirement benefits that you were promised, only yours come from tax payers unlike ours.
I hope every congressman votes to rescind the 2006 bill that has been the destruction of the postal service, No other company has to prepay for their employees retirement so why the postal service. It makes me ill to see what is happening in this country that I love. The post office serves all of us through all kinds of weather. It is time for both parties to do what is right.