Congress Dennis Ross Spoke on Postal Issues

On February 12,Congressman Dennis Ross tweeted "Speaking to the Letter Carriers installation dinner tonight in Lakeland. Going to speak the truth as I see it about the postal service."

Does anyone who follow this blog know what he said?  If you do, post a comment and/or e-mail me.

Tracking the "Bailout" Talk

Recently, the Daily Caller story that went to great lengths to call President Obama's 2012 budget proposal a bailout of the Postal Service.   The previous post, The Bailout Talk Has Begun.  Or Has It?" showed that the interviewees were actually stating that they believed just the opposit

However it was not the only website that chose to use that language.  Here are all that could be found with a quick Google search.  (new items will be added over time.)

During the Debate on Adjustments in the FY 2010 Continuing Resolution


Washington Post,  July 29, 2009: "Bailout in the Mail"

Politico, September 24, 2009: "A $4 Billion Bailout for the Postal Service?"

During the Debate of the FY 2011 Continuing Resolution

Washington Times, September 20, 2010, "ISSA: Time for Another Government Bailout"

During the Debate on the FY 2012 Budget

American Thinker, February 10, 2011: "Another bailout on the way - Postal Service next in line"

Daily Caller, February 17, 2011: "USPS Gets Short-term Relief from Obama’s 2012 budget, But Some Call it a Bailout"

Republic Watchdog, February 17, 2011: "Obama's $4 Billion Taxpayer Bailout of the Postal Service"

Jr. Deputy Accountant, February 17, 2011, "The Postal Service Gets A(nother) Handout from Washington"

Fox Nation, February 17, 2011,  "Obama's $4 Billion Taxpayer Bailout of the Postal Service"

The Snooper Report, February 17, 20111 "Obama's $4 Billion Taxpayer Bailout of the Postal Service"



The 2012 comments are starting to look viral, doesn't it?

The "Bailout" Talk Has Begun. Or Has It?

The Daily Caller today has an incendiary headline on President Obama's budget proposal regarding the Postal Service.  "USPS Gets Short-term Relief from Obama’s 2012 budget, But Some Call it a Bailout"  The headline suggests that that there are individuals who are familiar with postal policy who are willing to call what the President proposed a bailout.  However, the quotes of two conservative critics contained in the article suggest that finding anyone to use the word bailout took a great deal of effort.

Tad DeHaven, a budget analyst at the Cato had strong criticism but he did not call it a bailout.

“Surprise, surprise,” he said, “like on entitlements and everything else, they’re proposing to kick the can down the road with regard to the Postal Service’s long-term financial situation.”

DeHaven suggested that the long term solution was to privatize the Postal Service, but that even if that didn’t happen, the solutions being suggested were inadequate.

Members of Congress, he said, were unwilling to take the necessary steps because they get complaints from constituents when local post offices close or when stamp prices go up. Instead, he said, they come up with “gimmicky fixes that are very myopic at a time when they could use this long term vision.”

“But such is the nature of a politician, they operate on election cycles,” he added.

Looking at the budget, he was unimpressed. “It just continues to perpetuate an anachronism, and it demonstrates to me a lack of bold vision.”

Tad Dehaven's statement presents a serious proposal from a libertarian thinker.   The Postal Service should be privatized and the proposal doesn't go far enough to put it on that path.   Whether you agree with his statement or not, it would be hard to suggest that he called the budget a bailout.  In many ways the tone of his criticism is similar to the criticism of Senator Susan Collins, who has already proposed legislation that promotes more changes.

Mike Schuyler, senior economist at the Institute for Research on the Economics of Taxation who has frequently written conservative critiques of the Postal Service, supports the proposal

“I do not regard what’s specifically in the budget as a bailout,” he told The Daily Caller.

“My reaction as an economist is 100 percent funding is a highly prudent thing,” he said, regarding the over funded FERS. But, he continued, “if you’ve got over 100 percent funding, and you need money, taking the money out of an over funded account probably makes sense. So I have no problem with that.”

Moreover, he said, “I do not think that allowing the Postal Service to reschedule its payment for the retiree health benefits fund is a bailout. If the Postal Service was told you never have to pay it: that would be a bailout.” 


Mr. Schuyler only called what was not proposed a bailout. 

The Daily Caller is clearly trying to create new fodder for talk radio and conservative commentators.   It is clear that the most knowledgeable people on the right are not willing to add to this talk.

Book Stores as Community Centers; Should Congress Intervene to Keep Them Open?

Today, Borders filed for bankruptcy and announce that it will be closing 192 of its 642 stores.   These closures are leaving major holes in the communities affected.   Austin, Texas will lose all of its Borders.    Michigan will lose four stores including the store in Borders home town of Ann Arbor.   Chicago will lose most of its stores.  

The communities affected by Borders bankruptcy lose not only a place to buy books but more importantly a community gathering place whether in the isles of books, CD's and videos, and graphic novels or in the cafe.   These stores were places that acted as a late night place for students to study, mothers to meet with pre-schoolers for "play dates," the self employed to conduct business and couples on dates to go before or after a movie where they can flirt while they are browsing in the racks.   These stores also became community literary centers bringing members of the affected community together to listen to author talks and readings of children's books.  

The bankruptcy of Borders reflects the shift in how we buy books and recorded audio and video.  Books and much more likely to be bought on line and music is now mosly bought via downloads.  Now even hard-bound and soft-bound books are selling less frequently than books downloaded to e-readers and tablet computers.   Even video is switching from physical DVD's to streaming videos even though the quality of the product is inferior. 

The digital switch leaves those who are unable to embrace the new technology behind.  Those that continue to need physical books, as well as music and video recordings fall behind a "digital divide."  

The closing of 192 Borders stores will generate no calls from Congress for an investigation.  There will be no reqirement that Borders hold public hearings before it can close the stores affected.   No regulator will review Border's decision process in order to determine whether the decision to close each of the 192 stores is cost justified.   Shouldn't it?   Won't the effect on the communities be greater than the closing of a Post Office retail location that most patrons visit maybe twice a month that generate outrage from local communities, local politicians, the employees affected and Congress and require extensive regulatory review?  Maybe its time for Congress to require that book stores remain open and/or prove to a government regulator that the closure would save a company suffering losses money.

Wither e-mail advertising

So far today I have received 29 e-mail advertisements.   All of the ads are from vendors that I have used in the past so none of them are "spam"  The only way I know that I received 29 is that I have put all my ads into a separate folder called "vendor ads" in Outlook.  Included in those 29 were 4 identical ads from Office Depot and 2 identical ads from Booking Buddy.   

Today is typical.  Yesterday the number of ads was 33 and that included duplicates from four different vendors and one vendor sending two different e-mails to me within seconds of each other.  

Ever since I began putting the ads in a folder, I no longer see them every day.   I look at them at most once every couple of days when I need a break or know I have to buy something and need to see if anyone is selling what I need.  They clearly will not receive the immediate impact that the sender expected.

It is no wonder that the value of e-mail advertising is declining due to the clutter it creates.  it must be worse for those that use web based mail services and have to go though all of their ads one by one.   I am so overwhelmed by the number of ads, and messages from groups that I am a member of on LinkedIn that I am afraid to have my iPhone get my e-mail in addition to my laptop.

Maybe there is a future for physical mail after all.

What is the Economic Cost of Closing a Post Office?

The Center for the Study of the Postal Market has just posted in the Postal Journal the first study looking at this question.  The study was conducted by a team of six graduate students as part of a Cost Benefit class at the LaFollette School of Public Affairs at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.    The study examined a hypothetical situation, the impact of closing one Post Office in Marquette County Wisconsin.   This county is representative of some of the most rural counties in the United States with a population of less than 15,000 spread out over 455 sqare miles.

Last year the USPS - Office of Inspector General released a model that the students employed and determined that the Postal Service could justify on a business basis keeping only two of the seven Post Offices that now exist in the county.   The student's study looked at only closing one of the seven which was a more solvable problem within the time constraints of a course project

With the Postal Service about to close around 2,000 Post Offices and soon thereafter implementing a new retail strategy, this analysis should be of interest of anyone following changes in how the Postal Service offers retail services.   As a first attempt to look at this question, the analysis clearly has flaws, and as editor of the Postal Journal, I urge the readers of this blog to read the study and send me critiques and suggestions for further research that I can publish in the Postal Journal

For more details see the story in the Postal Journal.

Cost-Benefit Analysis Provides First Attempt to Measure Economic Impact of Closing a Rural Post Office

What do House Republicans Think About Budget Changes Relating to the Postal Service?

Now that the President's 2012 budget is out, both Senator Tom Carper and Senator Susan Collins have already commented on the proposal to provide some modifications to the Postal Service's retirement obligations.   To date, members of the house who are leading the subcommittee responsible for marking up legislation that would enact the changes that the President proposed have made any public statement about their views on the proposed statements.

As both Representatives Dennis Ross (R-FL) and Justin Amash (R-MI) are freshmen,  they have no history with Postal issues and are more than likely coming to the issue with not much more background in the postal market than the average consumer.  Given their lack of experience with the issue, it is not surprising that they did not immediately respond to the budget as the Senators Carper and Collins did.

What we have to go on is their public statements so here is a review of quotes from articles and press releases that may provide some guidance.

Congressman Dennis Ross

Ed O'Keefe of the Washington Post interviewed Congressman Ross after he was appointed chairman of the Government Reform Committee's subcommittee on federal workers, the Postal Service and labor policy.  In that interview he honestly expressed that the issues before the subcommittee were new to him although he had proposed similar changes in the federal payroll during his campaign.

Ross noted that he proposed trimming the federal payroll through pay freezes or attrition during his campaign. His new role, he said, presents "an exciting opportunity to open up and look inside the workings of our federal workforce" and learn more on a topic about which he admits he knows little.

Later the article gave an impression as to how he plans to run the subcommittee

Ross's subcommittee will focus first on those proposals by gathering facts and not pushing "a hidden agenda," he said. "We want to ask a lot of questions, we want to get a lot of experts testifying before us, and we want to find out what it's going to take" to deliver benefits to active and retired federal employees in a cost-effective manner, Ross said.

Congressman Justin Amash

Congressman Amash has a bit more of a public record that is available from his press releases. In a jhttp://amash.house.gov/press-release/amash-selected-oversight-leadership following his appointment as Vice Chairman of Government Reform Committee's subcommittee on federal workers, the Postal Service and labor policy, he presented an initial position on postal issues:

"USPS has raised its rates in the last several years and now is threatening steep service cuts. I look forward to examining closely whether some of USPS's functions could be done more efficiently through competition and the private sector."

In a press release announcing his appointment to the Congress's Joint Economic Committee, Representative Amash stated, 

"I look forward to studying how the government’s expansion has inhibited our economic growth and how we can be champions of job creators.”

Finally, in a press release following the publication of the President's budget, Congressman Amash provides the following quote:

“Instead of fresh ideas and a bipartisan way forward, the proposed budget feeds Washington’s addiction to more taxes, more spending, and more debt.  The White House’s own projections show a ‘new normal’ of debt that we have not seen since we were fighting World War II."

“Americans expect more from their representatives, as well they should.  With four years in a row of trillion dollar deficits, the public demands that we be more than caretakers of a bloated federal bureaucracy.  They deserve more than token cuts.  They deserve a responsible government.

“I look forward to working with House leadership and my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to remove the debt burden from our children and future generations.”  

In sum,  these statements suggest that the Republicans leading the Government Reform Committee's subcommittee on federal workers, the Postal Service and labor policy are faced with looking at a signifiant change in postal law with a limited understanding of:

• the postal market, 
• the roll that the Postal Service plays in the economy and 
• the challenges of turning around an enterprise as large as the Postal Service in a manner that does not disrupt the success of businesses, governments, and non-profit entities, including the campaigns they will likely run in another year that depend on the existence of a nationwide postal network. 

In all likelihood, both Congressman Ross and Amash will soon realize that gaining that understanding will take more effort than either of them envisioned when they were first appointed.