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A July 29, 2009 article by Mark Heschmeyer of the COSTAR GROUP (a real estate information company) entitled "Outbound Mail: USPS Targets Thousands of Branches for Closure" presents a prime example of what American consumers and taxpayers are going to experience in the years to come.

Mr. Heschmeyer explains: "The news of U.S. Postal Service (USPS) closures has been trickling out in local communities. But a closer examination behind the reports finds the potential for a major flood of closings. The Postal Service sent a notice to American Postal Workers Union executives this summer that it was considering consolidation options in every major metro market in the country and would consider closing 3,243 of its 4,851 largest branches and centers in the review process. The markets have been identified, the exact locations have not - although the USPS has already stamped almost one-fourth of the ones it has studied as disposable, according to postal union officials. The review process was to last most of the summer (or more if Congress gets involved, and you know they will) but they want the consolidation to occur by October 2010" and, later in the article, "The Postal Service has been profoundly impacted by the turbulent economy. Weakness and failures in the financial, credit, insurance and housing industries, all extremely heavy senders of mail, resulted in a mail volume decline of more than 9 billion pieces in 2008. Mail volumes for single-piece First-Class Mail declined to a level not seen since 1964. As the recession has expanded, volume has continued to decline. This has caused a significant shortfall in revenue, contributing to a loss of nearly $3 billion last year."

As you might suspect, this situation has been brewing for many years with not much done about it. In 2004, Rick Geddes (a research fellow at the Hoover Institution and an assistant professor in the Department of Policy Analysis and Management at Cornell University) in his article entitled "A Timely Proposal for Postal Reform", declared "The United States Postal Service amounts to a bloated and inefficient government monopoly." and went on to report:

"Last summer, the President's Commission on the Postal Service sent its recommendations for postal reform to President Bush. The report is a concise, thorough evaluation of the U.S. Postal Service. It is also timely. Demand for first-class mail delivery, the Postal Service's core revenue source, has been declining rapidly as customers employ electronic alternatives. In 2002, first-class mail volume suffered the largest drop in 30 years, and single-piece first-class volume (customers mailing single letters) is dropping at an increasing rate. Online bill payment is having a particularly significant effect. At the same time, the Postal Service's liabilities are escalating. The commission estimates USPS debts and unfunded obligations to be around $90 billion. In 2001, the General Accounting Office placed the USPS on its list of "high-risk" institutions because of its fiscal problems, raising the possibility of a taxpayer bailout...."

There's that "b-word" again.

- Ed Smith, Publisher
The EHS Letter Manual