26 April 2012

The Senate Punts Again

By a vote of 67-11 the United States Senate voted to spend $11 billion so it could avoid making a decision. Gotta love those twits.  Read all about it here.

I've watched with great (and some personal) interest the ménage à trois among the U.S. Postal Service, its unions, and Congress for the past two years. The Postal Service has been running a substantial deficit, particularity due to the precipitous drop in mail volume (for obvious reasons). The Service could break even if it closed mail distribution centers and some rural post offices and dropped Saturday delivery of mail.

Who could be against implementing efficiencies? The postal employee unions and politicians who listen to whining from a few of their constituents.

So who ends up paying? The United States tax payers, of course. Even John McCain gagged at this one: "This of course kicks the can down the road." For $11 billion the Senate has insured that nothing politically inexpedient will happen before this fall's election. Of course, there's the pesky prospect of elections in 2014. But c'est la vie.

Yet all is not lost. Only the Senate has passed this bill. Perhaps the House will show some courage and let the Postal Service do what needs to be done.

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