It's All Your Money: Taxpayers may be on hook for US Postal Service losses

The U.S. Postal Service is often the butt of jokes, but there's nothing funny about the agency's bottom line.
The USPS is losing up to $25 million dollars a day. Until now, taxpayers have not been on the hook for its mounting losses, but that could be about to change. A bailout recently approved by the Senate would appropriate $34 billion in federal money.
TAXPAYER CALCULATOR: Postal Service overhaul

"If the post office was a business, it would be in bankruptcy," said Rep. Dennis Ross, R-Fla. "It's insolvent.


Read more: It's All Your Money: Taxpayers may be on hook for US Postal Service losses | Fox News












They just need to get out of business and let a private enterprize do what they cannot seem to do.

 

Faux news. What else is one to expect. Nothing at all about the killer rule concerning the health care that Bush and boys put in there to sink the Postal Service, right?

 

ANOTHER Fox News story from Willow? Gee..... thanks willow

 

The effeciency of civil servant bureaucrats is never to be over stated............

Who cares how inept or costly it is...............Its the Postal Service !!! lol

 

Does anybody actually have a reason for keeping something so outdated as a governmental postal office in operation?

 

Well this is interesting:

Twisted government accounting behind Postal Service woes

There's a long and a short story to the tragic tale of Postal Service financial trouble. I'll start with the short one. Right now, the Postal Service is being forced to pre-pay health benefits for the next 75 years during a 10-year stretch. In the past four years, those prepayments have totaled $21 billion. The agency's deficit during that time is about $20 billion. Remove these crazy pre-payments — a requirement that no other government agency endures and no private industry would even consider — and the Postal Service would be in the black.
Red Tape - Twisted government accounting behind Postal Service woes

Funny how that fact hasn't been brought up.

 

Regardless of why the PO is in the financial shape it it, I think we need to continually ask ourselves if a government-provided service would be better accomplished through the free market. A good argument can be made for a PO in the early days of the country, which is why the framers included a PO in the enumerated powers. Now that we have extensive infrastructure, an advanced economy and alternative technologies, I believe the time has come to phase out the PO and let private business deliver the mail. This of course would mean competition, innovation and downward pressure on shipping costs...a good thing for the country. Therefore, I support a Constitutional amendment phasing out the PO.

 

I agree, completely.

 

....Or, what Republicans are willing to.....

 

The USPS needs to be either gutted and rebuilt from the ground up or gotten rid of.

I still think it has some usefulness, it just needs seriously reformed. Union pensions and other benefits need to be re-negotiated so they don't cost so much and maybe some facilities closed.