Obama endorses ending 1 day of mail delivery

[rsmith6621]

http://www.komonews.com/news/national/130146683.html

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Barack Obama said Monday the U.S. Postal Service should be allowed to reduce mail delivery to five-days-a-week to help cut its massive losses.

The Postal Service lost $8.5 billion last year and is facing even more red ink this year as the Internet siphons off large amounts of first-class mail and the weak economy reduces advertising mail.

While the post office has cut more than 100,000 workers in the last few years it needs to cut more, close offices and find other ways to reduce costs to keep operating.

In his economic growth and debt reduction plan unveiled Monday, Obama endorsed the idea of dropping one day of mail delivery - it is expected to be Saturday - and urged other changes in postal operations

[msongs]

1. so are we going to get one day's worth of discount on stamps and services too? nt

[pipoman]

9. That would defeat the purpose...

[Hardrada]

2. This is wrong. Many people rely on getting to a post office Saturday morning

when they are off work. And for other reasons. I don't see why the government can't subsidize the post office as much as it does the military.

[LooseWilly]

3. Hard to invade an oil producing nation with a post office...

just saying... corporate campaign contributions aren't "free"... ;)

[Hardrada]

4. Too true!

My local post office has been very helpful to my business. It won't go away but I want it to still be six days since I and a lot of other folks have orders to fill that need to sped along.

[Bluebear]

5. +1

[Nye Bevan]

8. I didn't see anything in the article about Post Offices being closed on Saturdays (nt)

[Occulus]

23. Was there another day being considered?

Why, no.

The article may not have said so, but Saturday is the day that will be cut.

This will cost me my job, by the way. My facility is on Teh List.

Have I mentioned I won't be voting for Obama in 2012?

[Nye Bevan]

25. I saw Saturday deliveries being eliminated, but I didn't see Post Offices closing.

Maybe that is the plan, but I just didn't see it in the article.

[cutlassmama]

6. with the increase in price of Netflix for mail in DVD's a lot of their

customers went with just "streaming" so there won't be as many red envelopes in the mail either. I think more and more people are using the internet to pay bills. I wonder if we'll HAVE to have internet to receive bills? If it wasn't for bills I wouldn't get any mail at all.

[pipoman]

10. Really? How do you avoid the junk mail and credit card applications?

[L0oniX]

26. You can block credit card solicitation by disabling inquires at Equafax and other.

I haven't received one cc app since I did that.

[AtomicKitten]

7. Rachel did a piece on this.

A law was passed in the 1990s requiring the Post Office to fund their healthcare benefits for 75 years into the future; yet another GOP-inspired low blow to try to eff up the union. Apparently there is a some $50 billion surplus. Congress can direct use of the surplus to plug up the holes in the PO's budget, probably close to the last thing on earth this GOP-led House will do.

[Nye Bevan]

11. Good. One less day that my mailbox gets stuffed with junk and catalogs. (nt)

[seabeyond]

12. hubby and i think it is an obvious solution. OR, everyone can start using postal and quit the

emailing.

[Fumesucker]

14. Don't shop much online, eh?

In my experience the USPS is far superior for shipping packages than UPS, FedEx or any of their clones.

Both cheaper and better service and if I happen to sell something they'll pick it up off my porch if I use Priority Mail and request a pick up..

[seabeyond]

15. me? not at all. husband? a lot....

and yes, he uses postal. he had lots of computer stuff he sold on ebay, when he sold his business. so that was my experience of using post office. he would package them up, and the people at my local postal office even came to know me, lol. was kinda fun

[Fumesucker]

19. Cutting the post office is so shortsighted..

It's by far the most efficient package moving service in the nation, indeed a large majority of FedEx and UPS packages go through the USPS system at some point.

If they cut a day it's almost certain to be Saturday, how do people who work business hours M-F ever get to the PO?

[seabeyond]

27. you are probably right.

i am probably wrong.

i would still support it. lol

[mmonk]

13. Instead of addressing the problem of the central lie that the Post Office

itself and the current economic downturn is the problem instead of what Congress did to it in order to try and bust the union and privatize it.

[MissB]

18. Yep.

[lpbk2713]

16. It won't be easy but I'll try to get by ...

without another day of credit card offers and circulars for stores I never go to.

[TBF]

17. Outlawing the reams of catalogues that come in my mailbox would be a better start.

I don't even look at them - just toss them in the trash. When I need something I do a google search or go to my favorite stores online. I don't need or want the catalogs. Such a waste of perfectly good trees.

[MissB]

20. How about removing the requirement to pre fund pensions for employees that don't exist?

Sure it's a great idea to pre fund pensions, but pre funding them for a 75 year time frame in only 10 years is a bit steep. And to force the USPS to pre fund not only current employees but future employees? Huh.

Sure, there would still be a gap between what they make and what they spend and that gap needs to be closed, perhaps even by reducing services. But this should be in tandem with removing an unreasonable requirement, one that no other public or private company is forced to do.

[AdHocSolver]

22. A Democrat should introduce a bill to require corporations to fund employee pensions the same way.

Then listen to Republicans howl about how unfair that is to business, and how it will hurt the economy.

[The Straight Story]

21. Allow them to get into banking and other services like they do in Europe (nt)

[InvisibleTouch]

24. That would be annoying. Not the end of the world, but annoying. n/t