Politics And Five-Day Mail Delivery
In May, U.S. Postmaster General John E. Potter told attendees at the second annual National Catalog Advocacy & Strategy Forum that he is convinced his proposal for five-day mail delivery will become a reality.
But that prognostication has hit a huge stumbling block called C-O-N-G-R-E-S-S.
The financial woes of the U.S. Postal Service have been well documented: The federal agency has not received an operational subsidy from Congress since 1982, and current estimates forecast the federal agency will lose a record $6.4 billion in fiscal 2009. That would be on top of losses of $2.8 billion in fiscal 2008 and $5.1 billion in fiscal 2007. The USPS last turned a profit of $900 million in fiscal 2006.
Potter’s five-day delivery proposal would save the USPS roughly $3.5 billion per year. But, according to The Hill, some politicians on both sides of the aisle remain skeptical of reducing mail delivery.
Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) said that she’s concerned that a reduction in service would result in a loss of customers. “[Small businesses] point out to me that if they’re trying to do a sale bulletin and there’s no delivery on Saturday and there’s a Monday holiday, it would be out of date by the time the delivery would be made,” she told the newspaper. “Small newspapers would be especially hurt without Saturday deliveries.”
Rep. José Serrano (D-N.Y.) told the newspaper that people depend on Saturday service and “would be greatly inconvenienced by missing a day’s delivery.” What’s more, the American Postal Workers Union has also come out against weekday-only service. The APWU contends that USPS’s funding shortfall is only temporary and that revenue will return once the economy recovers.
In 2000, an average of 5.9 pieces of mail was delivered to every stop, every day, Potter said in May. That average figure has now dropped to 4.7.
It seems as if Potter’s five-day delivery proposal is navigating a tenuous stretch ahead.
