7 More Reasons the GOP Might Be Starving USPS of Cash

Exactly why House Republican leaders chose not to act on any postal reform legislation before autumn is still a bit of a mystery. But last week’s Dead Tree Edition article on the subject (See 7 Reasons the GOP Might Be Starving USPS of Cash) stirred up plenty of theories and heated comments from all parts of the political spectrum.

Liberals seemed to think I was overly naïve in failing to see the obvious Republican plot to destroy the U.S. Postal Service and let the GOP's cronies loot what’s left. Several conservatives objected to Dead Tree Edition’s supposed liberal bias and questioned why links to this "partisan" article showed up in industry newsletters and LinkedIn groups.

I have a confession to make: Yes, I lean Democratic – whenever I hear Republican politicians yammering. And I start thinking Republican when the Dems start blowing their own hot air. As long as the two parties focus on name calling and sound bites rather than actual solutions, I have no qualms about ridiculing both sides of the aisle.

Anyway, amidst all the vitriol and conspiracy theories, seven additional interesting and sometimes insightful theories emerged to explain the GOP's inaction on the growing postal crisis:

1. Why bail out Obama?: If a real USPS crisis – like mail not getting delivered or people not getting paid – occurs before the election, who will get blamed? Sure, the thinking goes, House Republicans might take some heat for not bringing any bills to a vote. But the big issue would be the Obama Administration’s failure to provide leadership on a crisis that should have caught no one by surprise.


2. All pain, no gain: A vote for USPS cost cutting three months before re-election time? Forget about it. Many Congressmen probably had nightmares about their opponents holding media events at closed post offices or being cheered at rallies of laid-off postal workers. They know that those of us who to preserve the Postal Service by enabling it to balance its budget are poorly organized and will have little impact on this fall’s elections.

7 Reasons the GOP Might Be Starving USPS of Cash

Congressional Republicans seem intent on letting the U.S. Postal Service run out of cash, but even the pundits can't figure out exactly why.

The GOP-controlled House left for summer recess last week after failing to vote on two postal-reform bills that have been languishing for months -- a bipartisan Senate measure and a more conservative alternative developed by a Republican-controlled House committee. Republican leaders in the House refused to say why they have failed to bring either bill up for votes, but here are a few of the choicest theories:

• Fear: House Speaker John Boehner is perhaps "afraid voters would blame his members for the closing of underused post offices," wrote Gail Collins, an op-ed columnist for The New York Times. "There is nothing Congress cares more about than post offices, 38 of which the House has passed bills to rename over the past 18 months."
• Avoiding embarrassment: "Most likely, there's not enough support in the House to pass any bill, so holding a vote would be an embarrassing setback for the GOP leadership," speculates Rick Newman of U.S. News & World Report.
• Let's get closer to the cliff before we hit the brakes: Citing Republican sources, Bernie Becker of The Hill provided this amazing, and truly disgusting, reason: "Lawmakers don't know exactly when the Postal Service might hit a doomsday date when they wouldn't be able to deliver the mail.” Some Congressmen have criticized USPS for not stating exactly when it will go belly up, he wrote. They want to know whether a real crisis can be avoided in the next few months, which "could give the House even less incentive to bring the bill to the floor before their members face voters in November." 

On USPS Privatization, George Will Strikes Out

George Will is a Pulitzer Prize-winning political commentator who has penned some of the most beautiful prose ever written about baseball. But yesterday, in opining about the U.S. Postal Service, he whiffed when it came to basic fact checking.

After a fascinating history lesson about how Sunday mail delivery was discontinued a century ago, Will threw this clunker into his commentary for the The Washington Post:

"Surely the government could cede this function to the private sector, which probably could have a satisfactory substitute system functioning quicker than you can say 'FedEx,' 'UPS' and 'Wal-Mart.' The first two are good at delivering things; the third, supplemented by other ubiquitous retailers, could house post offices."

Question for Mr. Will: When was the last time you sent or received anything via FedEx or UPS that cost only 34 cents? Or even anywhere close to 34 cents? The average price USPS charged last fiscal year for First Class and other monopoly classes of mail was 34.1 cents.

More questions: When was the last time FedEx or UPS begged for the chance to take over the Postal Service's business? When was the last time you heard an executive from one of those companies say, "Gee, we'd really like to deliver mail to every address in the country, regardless of profitability and without price discrimination; we can't wait to drive snowmobiles in Alaska and to take mule trains into the Grand Canyon so that we can complete our appointed rounds"?

Yes, FedEx and UPS are "good at delivering things." So are moving companies and obstetricians. But none are set up to do what the Postal Service does on the scale that the Postal Service does it.

Both FedEx and UPS are happy to serve businesses five days a week (or to charge premiums for weekend delivery). But going to private homes is another matter. Their favorite method of getting low-value shipments to residences is to pay the Postal Service for making the actual deliveries.

Perhaps privatization of some or all U.S. postal services makes can or should lie in the future. But it won't simply be a matter of turning over mail delivery to the private sector, especially when no one in the private sector seems to be clamoring to take over the U.S. Postal Service and all the requirements and restrictions imposed on it.