GET LOGICAL WITH THE POSTAL SERVICE

The Washington shell game is back in action with the U.S. Postal Service’s latest scare tactic announcing the possible elimination of Saturday mail delivery. It is your Commander’s opinion that the arguments being generated by government leadership are nothing but a smoke screen to keep feeding our taxpayer dollars into a dysfunctional and outmoded business model.

It certainly should not take a Harvard Business School case study to recognize that the foundation of the Postal Service’s revenue base has dissipated with the advent of the internet. If your household is anything like mine we receive and pay most of our bills on-line and depend upon the Post Office less and less. That fact is supported by the reality that the USPS lost $3.8 billion dollars last year as mail volume fell by nearly 26 billion pieces to 177 billion in 2009 from 203 billion the year before. Future revenue numbers will only continue to decrease as more and more companies bill on-line.

It does not take a genius to realize that with the business model changing at such a dramatic pace, there must be significant changes in the way the USPS operates. Unfortunately the federal government does not have a good track record in operating a profitable business, because they become so compromised trying to satisfy every possible voter.

It is your Commander’s opinion that the USPS should be taken away from the federal government’s oversight and placed into the hands of a privately owned or stockholder controlled business model. UPS or FedEx could certainly operate a more efficient business, and the American taxpayer would not be holding the bag with ever increasing debt obligations.

Would a private postal service be everything we desire? Probably not, but how long can the American taxpayer be required to bail out unsustainable business models such as this. It is obvious that we all must adapt or perish. The USPS is certainly no exception.

Washington obviously likes to keep the USPS under its thumb, because it thus holds all those postal workers beholding to them for their lucrative pensions and attractive benefit pay packages. The government is buying votes when it keeps propping up a dysfunctional business model. It is time to get honest and real in making decisions about our postal service and our government efficiencies.

COMMANDER GRANGER