Postal cuts to slow delivery of first-class mail - Yahoo! News
WASHINGTON (AP) — Facing bankruptcy, the U.S. Postal Service is pushing ahead with unprecedented cuts to first-class mail next spring that will slow delivery and, for the first time in 40 years, eliminate the chance for stamped letters to arrive the next day.
The estimated $3 billion in reductions, to be announced in broader detail on Monday, are part of a wide-ranging effort by the cash-strapped Postal Service to quickly trim costs, seeing no immediate help from Congress.
The changes would provide short-term relief, but ultimately could prove counterproductive, pushing more of America's business onto the Internet. They could slow everything from check payments to Netflix's DVDs-by-mail, add costs to mail-order prescription drugs, and threaten the existence of newspapers and time-sensitive magazines delivered by postal carrier to far-flung suburban and rural communities.
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Congress caused this by ordaining in 2006 that the Postal Service had to prepay 50 years of its future pension obligations. Obviously the internet cut into postal revenues as well, but this present crisis was induced in order to justify privatizing the postal service entirely. A large segment of the American public is so ignorant, and determined to stay that way, that this strategy may work. Thanks to Fred Pilot for the link.
1 comment:
It's almost funny that those who claim to be "Constitutionalists" want to do away with one of the few government agencies explicitly authorized by the United States Constitution.
Of course, these are the same people who want to ignore the 7th Amendment, because corporations find it inconvenient.
I hope the Tea Partiers enjoy getting paid in scrip, because they're going to need it to buy essential goods at the company store once they their 13th Amendment rights are waived in some document called a contract.
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