Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Now the Post Office Needs a Bailout!

This is what you get when you create and promote an entitlement mentality. Everybody becomes a victim and nobody takes personal responsibility for their own incompetence.

The great irony in all of this bailout mania is that the taxpayers - who also want their share of any bailout - will be those receiving the bailouts, and those who are providing the bailout funds!

Will somebody please remind everyone that when it comes to money, "the government" is "the taxpayers".

Let's also remember that this bozo of a Postmaster General gave himself quite a nice raise last year amid all of this chaos. His base salary climbed to $265,000 last year from $186,000 in 2007. He also received a performance bonus of $135,000. In all his total compensation -- salary, bonuses, retirement benefits and other perks -- topped $850,000, a spokesman with the U.S. Postal Service told FOXNews.com...

Postal chief says post office running out of money

Breitbart.com
Mar 25 02:09

WASHINGTON (AP) - The post office will run out of money this year unless it gets help, Postmaster General John Potter told Congress on Wednesday as he sought permission to cut delivery to five days a week.

"We are facing losses of historic proportion. Our situation is critical," Potter told a House panel.
The agency lost $2.8 billion last year and is looking at much larger losses this year. Reducing mail delivery from six days to five days a week could save $3.5 billion annually, Potter said.

Potter also urged changes in how the post office pre-pays for retiree health care to cut its annual costs by $2 billion.

If the Postal Service does run out of money, the lingering question, Potter told the House Oversight post office subcommittee, is which bills will be paid and which will not. Ensuring the payment of workers' salaries comes first, he said, but other bills may have to wait.

Potter first raised the possibility of delivery cutbacks in January, but the idea has not been warmly received in Congress.

"With the Postal Service facing budget shortfalls, the subcommittee will consider a number of options to restore financial stability and examine ways for the Postal Service to continue to operate without cutting services," subcommittee chairman Stephen F. Lynch, D-Mass., said.
Lynch said the financial stability of the Postal Service is "critical to the American expectation of affordable six-day mail delivery."

Even if the agency succeeds in reaching its planned cost cuts of $5.9 billion, there could still be a $6 billion deficit in 2010, Potter said.

"Without a change we will exhaust our cash resources," he said. "We can no longer afford business as usual."

Asked if layoffs would occur, Potter said it is possible but he hopes avoidable.

Last week, the post office said it planned to offer early retirement to 150,000 workers and is eliminating 1,400 management positions and closing six of its 80 district offices in cost-cutting efforts. Potter said he expects 10,000 to 15,000 workers to accept the early retirement offer.

2 comments:

  1. It seems the post office makes the lions's share of it money today in junk mail. Make those

    advertisers pay and phase out of the mail business. The post office has fallen behind the

    times. They saw what effect the internet was having and went into denial intead of finding a

    way compete. We should cut our losses,not create another bailout, and privatise the mail

    ReplyDelete
  2. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete