Tag: USPS

The post office delivers 689 million pieces of mail per day, and letter carriers each haul 42 tons per year. Most Americans–98%–continue to pay their bills by mail. Yet those vital services are jeopardized by the Postal Service’s shaky finances. The General Accounting Office has labeled the postal system “at risk,” and Postmaster General John Potter projects a deficit of $2 billion to $3 billion for 2003.

Internal reform as well as congressional legislation is urgently needed. Indeed, even as it prepares to raise rates in June, the post office will submit a blueprint “Transformation Plan” to Congress this week.

USPS’s financial outlook is becoming increasingly dire. USPS has continuing deficits, severe cash-flow pressures, rising debt, and liabilities that exceed its assets. USPS also lacks sufficient income to fund growing capital asset needs for safety, maintenance, expansion, and modernization as well as to fund its liabilities. In fiscal year 2001, USPS reported a $1.68 billion deficit, up from a $199 million deficit in the preceding fiscal year. Further, USPS budgeted for a $1.35 billion deficit in fiscal year 2002, before the catastrophic events of September 11 and subsequent use of the mail to transmit anthrax. The combined effect of these events and the current economic slowdown have served to further exacerbate USPS’s financial difficulties by decreasing postal revenues, while postal costs continued to increase despite additional USPS cost-cutting efforts.