HUFFINGTON
07.22.12
GOINGPOSTAL
$3.2 billion in losses last quarter,
for instance, about $3.05 billion
came from the pre-funding burden, not from operational failings.
Ohio Democrat Rep. Dennis
Kucinich, a staunch supporter of
postal workers, has gone so far as
to argue that small-government
advocates in Congress created the
mandate in order to deliberately
cripple the agency and create an
excuse to push for cuts. “That was
a move that was designed to deal
a death blow to the U.S. Postal
Service,” Kucinich said at a press
conference last month.
Regardless of the mandate, the
decline in mail volume is undeniable and will only get worse. Some
supporters worry that the attempts to save the agency will end
up killing it instead.
“We need to do some major,
thoughtful restructuring of the
postal service so it can survive in
the long run,” says Bloom, who,
along with the investment bank
Lazard, has been hired by the National Association of Letter Carriers union to devise a turnaround
strategy for the agency. “But we
don’t need to rush to judgment and
slash and burn the very asset the
post office has, which is its network. Then it will never recover.”
“MAIL IS LIKE
OXYGEN. IT’S THERE
AND YOU COUNT ON
IT, AND YOU DON’T
GET WORRIED
ABOUT IT UNTIL IT
DISAPPEARS.”
Donahoe’s critics say his proposed reforms will start the
agency on a “death spiral”: If you
cut the post office’s core services,
customers begin looking at other
options, leading inevitably to
more financial hardship and further cuts down the line. A majority of Americans may be willing to
forgo Saturday delivery and drive
farther to buy stamps, but as the
value and convenience diminish,
so does the agency’s long-term viability, the thinking goes.
“The post office is being pushed
to the cliff, into the abyss,” Ralph
Nader, the longtime consumer
advocate and an acolyte of the
death-spiral theory, told The
Huffington Post last year. “The
ultimate goal is shrinkage — continual shrinkage and private businesses pick up the cream.”
Consider one likely service cut: