By Caroline Baum,Bloomberg
Obama’s model for efficiency is the Post Office
“UPS and FedEx are doing just fine. It’s the Post Office that’s always having problems.” —Barack Obama,Aug. 11,2009
No institution has been the butt of more government- inefficiency jokes than the U.S. Postal Service. Maybe the Department of Motor Vehicles.
The only way the post office can stay in business is its government subsidy. The USPS lost $2.4 billion in the quarter ended in June and projects a net loss of $7 billion in fiscal 2009,outstanding debt of more than $10 billion and a cash shortfall of $1 billion. It was moved to intensive care —the Government Accountability Office’s list of “high risk” cases –- last month and told to shape up. (It must be the only entity that hasn’t cashed in on TARP!)
That didn’t stop President Barack Obama from holding up the post office as an example at a town hall meeting in Portsmouth,New Hampshire,last week.
When Obama compared the post office to UPS and FedEx,he was clearly hoping to assuage voter concerns about a public health-care option undercutting and eliminating private insurance.
What he did instead was conjure up visions of long lines and interminable waits. Why do we need or want a health-care system that works like the post office?
The US Postal Service is it's own worst enemy. The service gets lousier every year,and the cost of postage is atrocious,yet they cannot make ends meet. The only Time I ever go to the Post Office is when I have to go there to pick up a package which has been sent there that will not fit into my mailbox. The lines are horrendously long,there are never more than 2-3 people working a 7 station service counter,and the average length of any transaction is 10-15 minutes. I know of omly 1-2 employees that seem to have a clue what they are doing. The remainder spend the majority of a customer's time looking up the rules or god-knows-what to complete the transaction. Even though I am only there to pick up a parcel,it takes 5-10 minutes to find it. Would you run a business this way? No wonder they are in the red no matter how much Postal Rates increase. They need to bring in retirees from UPS to show them how to run the place. Better yet,let UPS get into mail delivery and eliminate the Postal Service. There is no better example of inefficiency in the workplace anywhere on earth than the USPS,bless their lazy little hearts and brains.
DO NOT GIVE USPS ANY KIND OF BREAK OR BAILOUT. LET A BAD SYSTEM GO BELLY UP,PERHAPS THEY WILL GET A CLUE AND LEARN HOW TO BE MORE EFFICIENT. IF YOU WANT TO SEND A PACKAGE,USE FEDEX OR UPS. LET THE USPS CONCENTRATE ON ENVELOPES. THAT IS ABOUT ALL THEY CAN SEEM TO HANDLE,AND THAT VERY POORLY.