The Hill News

Apply the Tourniquet  Now

The U.S. Postal Service is hemorrhaging red ink. The Postal Service recently placed a 911 call to Congress, pleading for permission to address a wound caused by a plummeting first-class mail rate and explosive adoption of electronic communication. The USPS’s proposed five-year business plan, “Plan to Profitability,” must be approved and immediately enacted in order to constrain the bleeding and sustain the USPS until 2016.
 
It is a critical situation â€" the USPS is losing money at a lethal rate. By its own projections, the Postal Service could incur annual losses of $21.3 billion and accumulate $92 billion in debt by 2016.  Instead, the USPS rescue plan calls for $22.5 billion in annual cost reductions by 2016, nearly $10 billion of which depends on Congress approving significant legislative reforms: allow the USPS to provide employee health benefits outside federal health programs, increase the First-Class Mail ! stamp price to $0.50 and authorize a move to a 5-day delivery schedule. When fully applied with the operational and compensation initiatives, this plan is designed to keep the Postal Service alive.

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