Awash in Red Ink, Post Office Needs a Fix
Or abolition
By now everybody knows about the financial problems of the U.S. Postal Service, which defaulted on a $5 billion payment owed to the U.S. Treasury last August. You would think Congress would have done something about this. But 2012 was an election year. People in Washington were more concerned with their own survival than with coming to the aid of the country's ailing mail system.
There wasn't much reward for the few exceptions. Senator Tom Carper, a Democrat from Delaware, helped move a bill through his chamber that would have relieved the USPS of some of its crushing financial obligations. But Representative Darrell Issa, the Republican chairman of the House's oversight committee, assailed the bill as "a special interest spending binge that would actually make things worse." Carper responded by frequently blasting House Republicans for failing to pass a more draconian postal-reform bill that Issa himself had crafted. The senator also unveiled the "Carper Countdown Clock" on his website, which ticked off the days that the House failed to act as the USPS was approaching its rendezvous with insolvency. (Clearly that didn't do any good.)
Hide Comments (0)
Editor's Note: As of February 29, 2024, commenting privileges on reason.com posts are limited to Reason Plus subscribers. Past commenters are grandfathered in for a temporary period. Subscribe here to preserve your ability to comment. Your Reason Plus subscription also gives you an ad-free version of reason.com, along with full access to the digital edition and archives of Reason magazine. We request that comments be civil and on-topic. We do not moderate or assume any responsibility for comments, which are owned by the readers who post them. Comments do not represent the views of reason.com or Reason Foundation. We reserve the right to delete any comment and ban commenters for any reason at any time. Comments may only be edited within 5 minutes of posting. Report abuses.
Please
to post commentsMute this user?
Ban this user?
Un-ban this user?
Nuke this user?
Un-nuke this user?
Flag this comment?
Un-flag this comment?