The USPS needs to face reality. Just as retailers had to adjust to the advent of online sales, the USPS needs to adjust to the age of e-communication. That means systemic change. By the nature of the organization, that means changes to traditional services (e.g. Saturday delivery) and personnel (both number of workers, pay and benefits). What Congressman Cummings proposes simply puts off the day of reckoning.

Why does the postal service need to be profitable or competitive? No other service will ever willingly visit your door anywhere in America to pick up your mail. This is a fundamental government service that should NEVER be entrusted to the private sector. The Constitution many USPS haters love to quote happens to say something about that.

I work for the USPS and its incredible the station managers and post masters that currently have jobs. They are truly at fault to where the USPS is heading. I think we need more Postal Inspectors to check out secretly what workers do on a daily basis. There are workers that sleep in the bathroom, dont want to work what they are told. In my office the station manager we have truly does not know what she is doing. We are short around 76k this year, Im sure cutting her out would make a lot of progress in our office. One Postmaster would be enough for our three offices in our area.

I get tired of the USPS blaming its decline on email. They are failing because their business model -- elaborate and complex benefit packages, massively outdate and inflexible union rules and overburdened contracts, and binding to century-old practices are killing the USPS.

Combined with foolish and stupid rules about which businesses the USPS can get involved with -- or can't -- established by a cowardly Congress unwilling to force them to "go big or get out", this is a massive disaster on the scale of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae yet again.

All Cummings' proposal does is slow down the eventual crash and burn for a few months. The burn rate will be the same unless the USPS is permitted to break its contract, adjust its workforce, and change its business model dramatically.

Until they do that, we are going to get screwed by the USPS.

Prediction: America will not let the USPS drown in red ink. Too many jobs and too much "history" at stake... Instead, it will simply become yet another expensive, inefficient, and largely unnecessary government program that we need to "raise taxes on the rich" to pay for.

Instead, why don't we admit that most people don't need mail to their door each and every day of the week (except Sunday) and let the service get with the times?

Here's something I wrote about the issue a couple weeks ago: http://www.mdpolicy.org/policyblog/detail/nothing-is-sacred-the-post-office

As a long-time Postal worker who works hard for a living, I'll wager that the clowns who say "do away with the post office" wouldn't talk so tough if it were their job at stake and family at risk.

KenC, 100% of your pay and benefits come out of my back pocket, and I probably do not make as much taxable income as you do.

100% of all police, firemen, and teacher's pay, benefits and pension come out of my back pocket.

100% of all governor and state legislature pay and pensions come out of my back pocket...the private citizen.

100% of pay and benefits for all military and Federal government beauracrats comes out of my back pocket in the form of income taxes...and that includes Babs Mikulskie, Ben Cardin and Barry Obama.

After all these leaches rape me for exhorbitant pay, benefits, and pensions, I am left to fend for myself. i do not make six figures a year, yet I pay tribute to those public employees so they can have better wages, benefits, and pensions then I will ever enjoy.

Every new government job, whether as a politician, policy analyst, or janitor, is paid for by the private citizen. The private citizens are TAPPED OUT.

Let's see, Barack Obama worships Warren Buffet, who says he doesn't pay enough in taxes, yet let a private foundation to dispense his extra wealth rather than allowing his hero Barack Obama to redistribute that wealth in a classic governmentlly inefficient manner.

Gotta take this call, thanks for reading if you got this far.

The post office is the only organization required by Congress to pre-fund future retirees. If the post office wasn't required to do this, it would have lost zero dollars. There is more than $50 billion in pre-fund money already in the account. Or should I say in the hands of Congress who have already spent the money on other things. Where is the real news?

KenC, you do not pay the salarys and benefits of postal workers. They are paid by sales of postage, not tax payers.