On May 10th, 2011 the Associated Press reported that the Postal Service is hemorrhaging money, reporting a loss of more than $2 billion over the first three months of the year and warning it could be forced to default on federal payments. The only surprise here, is if this came as a surprise to anyone.
In May 2010 I posted a blog entitled, “Tuesday’s Mail – Should Your Tax Dollars Subsidize Direct Mail?” It expressed concern that the US Postal Service was spending time and money in pursuit of an antiquated business. My suggestion in that blog was to immediately move to a maximum delivery schedule of five days per week. In that blog, I displayed a photo of my mail for that Tuesday, somewhat representative of my mail on any given day. The only important mail I receive are client checks, which probably should, and certainly could, be paid electronically.
Snail Mail - An Anachronism
Perhaps the Postal Service is a quick and easy target for savings and an opportunity for our government to show they are serious about reducing wasteful spending. What if we reduced mail delivery to five days per week and cut down on the 200,000 USPS trucks visiting millions of households every day? Even better, can we physically deliver snail mail four days per week? Think of the fuel savings and pollution mitigation from these changes. Perhaps the labor force changes can be accomplished through attrition and reassignment. Perhaps the government can use this as one example of how the US plans to cut fuel waste by encouraging an electronic and greener mail delivery system. Certain agencies are already doing so. The Social Security Administration has already announced the end of paper checks effective on March 1, 2011 for new recipients, and on March 1, 2013 for current benefit recipients. The Treasury estimates the transition to electronic payment will save an estimated $300 million over the first five years, and $120 million each year thereafter. That’s a huge amount of snail mail, important snail mail, that will disappear off mail trucks. More importantly it’s a compelling signal indicating change is needed, and needed now.
The agency says the $2.2 billion Postal Service loss covers the period from Jan. 1 to March 31, 2011. Shall we round it and call it about $8 billion, up from about $6 billion last year? Though the Postal Service doesn’t receive tax money, the US government will become responsible if the organization defaults, or in other words, tax payers will be holding the bag. I realize the wheels of government turn slowly, but seriously, do we really need to take half a decade to decide we no longer need junk mail delivered six days per week?
