Saving a dinosaur, part 2: Overhauling the Post Office for the 21st Century

Saving a Dinosaur, part 1 was here--now for part 2 (courtesy a New York Times editorial):

Overhauling the Post Office for the 21st Century - NYTimes.com: "A reasonable request from management to end Saturday mail deliveries would net savings of $3 billion a year for the service, which reported a loss of $5.1 billion in the fiscal year just ended. This gets approval in the House’s bill, but not the Senate’s. On the other hand, the Senate measure offers creative ways to finance buyouts of 100,000 workers and ease health care costs, while a draconian House provision threatens to transfer power to a control board if the service runs deficits for more than two years.

"Congress needs to produce a bill that allows the Saturday shutdown as well as the closure of up to 3,700 local post offices where service would be continued through automated outlets at neighborhood businesses. First-class use is plummeting, and annual revenues have dropped from $75 billion to $65 billion in the last four years. Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe is pleading for authority to make $20 billion in cuts by 2015 to let the service fairly compete against private mail and delivery companies."

Tweet    Follow @johnmpoole