2012.02.06
Saving or killing the postal service?
A Senate vote on a bill that would close thousands of post offices around the country was expected as soon as next week, but Democratic Senate aides are saying it’s likely to be delayed until after Presidents’ Day (Feb. 20), according to a report in The Hill yesterday.
Rural state senators led by independent Bernie Sanders of Vermont are balking at a bill put together by Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Joe Lieberman that would let the U.S. Postal Service close thousands of offices — though it’s not as draconian as the postal service’s own plan. Sanders believes the bill “could lead to the eventual privatization of the postal service.”
The Hill quotes Sanders: “On perhaps the most important issue, the Lieberman bill is silent, which will in fact allow the postal service to slow down mail delivery standards and shut down half of the processing plants in America, which to my mind will lead to the eventual destruction of the postal service as we know it today. What we are fighting for is to maintain the one- to three-day delivery standards for first-class mail.”
That has been the argument against closing processing centers in Roanoke and Lynchburg.
The bipartisan Lieberman bill is open to attack from House Republicans, though, as too expensive after the Congressional Budget Office estimated it would lose $6.3 billion over a decade. Supporters of the reform measure question some key CBO assumptions, according to On the Money, The Hill’s finance and economy blog.
