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Friday, January 02, 2015

Carper: Reforming Postal Service should be a top priority for congress

As the 113th Congress ends, Sen. Tom Carper, chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, renewed his call for Congressional action on comprehensive postal reform and called on the incoming 114th Congress to make the issue a top priority:

“More than 200 years after its founding, the Postal Service remains an important part of our lives and economy. But it continues to face financial challenges that threaten its future. For years, the Postal Service has worked hard to compete in the age of the Internet - keeping prices as low as possible, reducing its fixed costs, and innovating where it can. But its leadership can only do so much without new authorities from Congress, and without hurting service quality. Congress needs to free the Postal Service of its financial and legislation constraints and give it the opportunity to modernize and grow through innovation.

“The Postal Reform Act of 2014, which I introduced with Dr. Tom Coburn, offered a comprehensive and bipartisan solution to the Postal Service’s financial challenges that would prevent collapse, protect millions of mailing industry jobs, and allow the institution to adapt to a digital age. Unfortunately, my colleagues and I in the Senate were not able to come to consensus in time to move forward. As a result, in the absence of reform, it’s likely that the Postal Service will shortly be forced to continue to take a number of unpopular measures on its own to cut costs. These are cuts I tried hard to prevent. But because Congress has failed to act, the Postal Service cannot afford to continue with the status quo.

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4 comments:

Anonymous said...

from 2009 - A GAO audit classified nearly half of all purchases on government credit cards as improper, fraudulent, or embezzled. Examples of taxpayer-funded purchases include gambling, mortgage payments, liquor, lingerie, iPods, Xboxes, jewelry, Internet dating services, and Hawaiian vacations. In one extraordinary example, the Postal Service spent $13,500 on one dinner at a Ruth's Chris Steakhouse, including "over 200 appetizers and over $3,000 of alcohol, including more than 40 bottles of wine costing more than $50 each and brand-name liquor such as Courvoisier, Belvedere and Johnny Walker Gold." The 81 guests consumed an average of $167 worth of food and drink apiece.

Anonymous said...

He lies, they also spent millions on machines that never worked.

Anonymous said...

The postal service is great , I receive trash everyday in the mail , thus costing me a fee at the land fill. WTF is wrong with this country.
I guess that means I support the Postal service and the landfill .

Anonymous said...

don't forget the millions given to the cheating bicyclist Lance Armstrong - how has that pony express reform been working out? NOTHING is "sustainable" forever!