Postal Service Shows How Government Healthcare Will Work
The Postal Service is bleeding red ink:
WASHINGTON—The U.S. Postal Service Wednesday posted a net loss of $2.4 billion in its third quarter and expects to lose more than $7 billion by the end of the fiscal year.
The rising tide of red ink could leave the Postal Service with a potential cash shortfall of as much as $700 million by its fiscal-year end on Sept. 30, when it must pay as much as $5.8 billion to prefund retiree health benefits. Postal Service officials hope Congress will pass legislation that would increase its ability to borrow from the U.S. Treasury Department before the bill comes due.
Continued declines in traditional mail are weighing on the Postal Service. It said mail volume fell 14.3% in the third quarter, following a 14.7% drop in the second quarter, with little improvement projected in the coming year.
“The recession has been brutal,” Postal Service Chief Financial Officer Joe Corbett said at public meeting of the postal service board of governors.
The Postal Service has imposed a hiring freeze and is cutting hours and costs as revenue has declined. It is considering closing more than 600 postal facilities and is looking to switch to five-day-delivery service from six days, a move that would require congressional approval.
Here is the difference between the postal service, social security, medicare and Obama’s newest healthcare monstrosity:
The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;...
To establish Post Offices and Post Roads;
Even when exercising Constitutional authority, the government proves inept at managing a business. And make no mistake, the Postal Service is a business. A heavily subsidized, unionized, government run business. All three of those phrases describe Amtrak among other government ventures. And they will no doubt describe the new “co-ops” or even worse, the whole enchilada healthcare reform Obama wants passed. Card Check will be used and co-op or government healthcare employees will most certainly be union and overpaid bureaucrats.
I would love if someone could explain how something as trivial as delivering mail, that UPS and FedEx do extremely well and certainly profitably, can be so mismanaged that the Postal Service is losing $7B a year and is already heavily subsidized to begin with.
