14-Mar-10 12:00 PM EST

Post office needs new fiscal model

Post office needs new fiscal model
By Robert Michaels
Timesunion.com

Despite massive U. S. Postal Service losses, you still can have mail delivered to your home or business at no charge to yourself. In contrast, if you want your mail to remain in the post office, you must pay for a post office box. Achieving fiscal sustainability of Postal Service operations requires correcting this intrinsically uneconomical business model, while promoting fiscal and environmental sustainability.

Customers should not be charged for post office boxes, that is, for opting out of mail delivery. Close to 150 million home and business addresses receive mail delivery each mail day, at an enormous cost for labor and energy. This cost is borne, not just by customers, but by our country and our planet because of the huge carbon footprint associated with use of fossil fuel by postal vehicles.

The Postal Service should reduce postage for senders, provide free post office boxes and start charging recipients for home or business delivery if they want this service.

Itemizing sending and receiving costs might hold the line on overall postal costs, with fiscal sustainability arising from labor and energy savings. People who pass their post office each day might opt to stop in for their mail. Apartment dwellers might opt for delivery at a charge that would be minimal because many boxes are located together. Above all, itemizing sending and receiving costs would improve cost accounting, and thereby promote efficiency and ultimately fiscal and environmental sustainability for a major player in our economy.

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Source: Timesunion.com

http://www.timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=911469&category=OPINION