Last week, the United States Postal Service announced that it was going to end Saturday delivery in August 2013. This is part of a process that will see the Postal Service plan to close over 
3,000 local post offices and reduce its workforce by one-third over the next year. From the website Truthout.org comes a brilliant and well done history of how the Post Office got into this current fix and what, if anything, can be done to save it.
The article by David Morse discusses the history of the Post Office starting with President George Washington making the United States Post Office a cabinet level department. It explains the Postal Reorganization Act of 1970 and how that act created a quasi-public corporation now called the United States Postal Service. It hi-lights the fact that between 1995 and 1997, the Postal Service produced a surplus of $4.6 billion.
Then in 2001, the General Accountability Office (GAO) placed the Postal Service on its high risk list because of concerns about its economic future and increasing competition from electronic mail. At the request of Congress, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) conducted a review of the Postal Service’s liabilities to the Federal Civil Service Retirement System. It turned out that the USPS had overfunded its pension plan by more than $70 billion and by 2003, the overpayment had risen to well over $100 billion. But because the Postal Service is 
considered part of the Federal unified budget and is used for scoring purposes to estimate a legislation’s impact on the deficit, the excess funds were not returned to the Postal Service (or its employees).
In 2006, the Republican controlled Congress required the Postal Service to prepay the present value of future health care benefit payments to retirees within a ten year span. However, it was required to ignore its previous $100 billion overpayment to the retirement system. NO other Federal agency was (or has been since) required to do this and this has been a major contributor to placing the Postal Service on its current road to failure. In 2007, the Postal Service suffered a $5 billion deficit and in 2013 that deficit will rise to over $20 billion.
Additionally, the 2006 law prohibited the Postal Service from offering any new products that would create “an unfair or otherwise inappropriate competitive advantage for the Postal Service….” Nor is the Postal Service allowed to lower its prices in order to attract business. In short, the Postal Service must compete in today’s world with one arm tied behind its back and blindfolded. It is uncompetitive because of a poorly thought out Congressional mandate.
There was a time when the Post Office had public copy machines and offered a “pack and send” service. Now these services are now only offered by the competitors of the Postal Service, FedEx and UPS, thanks to people like Congressman Darrell Issa who chairs the House Oversight & Government Reform Committee. The Senate passed a bill last year to overhaul the Postal Service, but the House bill never even made it out of committee.
There are still people in this country who depend on the Postal Service and don’t have access to the internet or computers. There are many older Americans who depend on the Post Office to deliver their medicines directly to their door and can’t/aren’t able to drive to a Post Office to pick up their mail. There are people on fixed incomes in this country who can’t afford to pay FedEx, DHL or UPS to deliver a birthday card to a grandchild. The bottom line is this: Congress broke the Post Office and Congress needs to fix it – now! And yes, Congressman Issa, I’m talking to you.