Just as I’m thinking that the U.S. is doing a great job overall of learning how to save money, make wise spending choices, and as I’m getting the feeling that the light at the end of the recession tunnel is coming into focus, I read about this major financial flub. Apparently the U.S. Postal service is losing up to $25 million dollars a day, according to William La Jeunesse at Foxs News. I knew in the back of my mind that certainly snail mail is being phased out, as emails, scanning, faxing, and even texting becomes increasingly more the norm. But I had no idea that the money going down the drain was such an outrageous number. La Jeunesse reports,
“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 bill recently approved by the Senate would appropriate $34 billion in federal money.
“If the post office was a business, it would be in bankruptcy,” said Rep. Dennis Ross, R-Fla. “It’s insolvent.”
Ironically, however, Congress shares much of the blame. For years, the Postal Service begged Washington for the freedom to cut its own budget by closing post offices and cutting employees. But Congress, under pressure from rural constituents and labor unions, prevented the cuts, and the service continued to bleed red ink.
In December, the USPS said it wanted to close more than half of its mail processing centers, eliminate 28,000 jobs, end overnight delivery of first-class mail, close 3,700 local post offices and end Saturday delivery.”
To see why so much money is leaking out of the system, and what the suggested remedy is, click here.
The article ends by saying that unless there is a compromise between the House and the Senate, the USPS could announce post office closings as early as next week. Holy moly. Even though that would be an awful lot of layoffs, it would also supposedly be saving a lot of “wasted” taxpayer money. What are your thoughts?
