The United States Postal Service will not stop delivering mail on Saturdays this summer. After years of cost-cutting measures like closing post offices and selling property, USPS says it can't fully right its budget ship without reducing its delivery schedule:
To restore the Postal Service to long-term financial stability, the Postal Service requires the flexibility to reduce costs and generate new revenues to close an ever widening budgetary gap. It is not possible for the Postal Service to meet significant cost reduction goals without changing its delivery schedule – any rational analysis of our current financial condition and business options leads to this conclusion. Delaying responsible changes to the Postal Service business model only increases the potential that the Postal Service may become a burden to the American taxpayer, which is avoidable [U.S. Postal Service Board of Governors, statement, 2013.04.10].
Dropping Saturday mail is perhaps the most popular cost-saving measure the Postal Service has proposed. But rural Congresspeople raised a ruckus and found that the USPS lacks the authority to change that delivery schedule. USPS must thus wait for Congress to approve dropping Saturday mail.
South Dakota's lone Congresswoman Kristi Noem won't support such a change. She says Washington has a spending problem, but when the Postal Service proposes a concrete plan to save $2 billion dollars that would cut a service she personally enjoys, she cries no, no, no! When presented a simple accounting fix that would solve the Postal Service's budget issues, Rep. Noem takes no action. She instead conjures up "structural reforms" and "internal issues" vague code words that expose her preference for tubthumping over thinking and practical action. She wants government services, but she doesn't want to pay for them.
More broadly, Rep. Noem's stubborn refusal to give up the chance to send you improperly franked campaign materials and poorly proofed propaganda six days a week shows how her selfishness (Noem runs on altruism? Get real!) and stubborn resistance to anyone's information or opinion but her own prevents her and Congress from taking real action to solve budget issues.
Related: Congresswoman Noem was trapped at the Sioux Falls airport for hours yesterday due to the ice storm. Thankfully, federal regulations were there to protect her:
And after spending hours on the tarmac as crews tried to get planes in the air, with air conditioning shut off to air the de-icing effort, Noem said she appreciates the federal rule limiting how long airlines can leave passengers idling on the runway.
“I think it’s good,” Noem said. “It certainly serves a purpose. If we were bumping up against that 3-hour rule and were just about to take off, people might have been wondering about that, but certainly it’s a long time to sit there and wait” [David Montgomery, "Ice Storm Trapped Noem at Sioux Falls Airport," Political Smokeout, 2013.04.09].
When government makes her life better, Kristi Noem loves government.
Update 20:18 MDT: Conservative P&R Miscellany calls Congress boneheads for blocking USPS's proposed delivery-schedule change. USPS's backup option is layoffs, and while P&R doesn't like big government, even he recognizes that laying people off during a time of high unemployment isn't the smartest policy move.
ICYMI: Noem's spokesperson is the daughter of a National Weather Service meteorologist.
Concur. Except I don't think it would be any different if the congresswoman in question were Herseth-Sandlin (or any other potential representative from either party - such perqs have truly bipartisan support).
Noem is a joke. She's no small government conservative. She's a poser. I hope Stace Nelson is considering a run against her.
If the wingnuts in Congress didn't force the USPS to fund pensions seven decades in advance — unlike any other business — there wouldn't be any problem whatsoever. Then again, right-wingers are always good at tantrums, not so good at the real-world consequences of their actions.
When someone in Faith or Highmore or Corsica can't get their prescriptions delivered on Saturday, then we'll hear a big wailing and gnashing of teeth... while they still vote to send Mrs. Noem to Congress.
Would it not make more sense to subsidize the USPS than to have it cut services. We spend far more money on less worthy things every day in gov't. The USPS helps drive business and that provides tax revenue for our gov't.
I was concerned that we would only be getting our junk mail 5 days a week. I will sleep better now
I was concerned the the SD legislature would decide whom I can marry.
Yes, Michael, investment in USPS wouldn't be a bad idea. Heck, the post office is even a Constitutional obligation!
Let me offer this observation. There are a lot of all the posers in congress spouting rhetoric about smaller government and fiscal responsibility. Noem and Thune are two of them. If they were serious budget cutters, they would be touring South Dakota preparing South Dakotans to share the pain and saying that cuts don't just happen elsewhere - they happen everywhere. Instead, they take the typical politician route and talk about cuts but fight for every federal dollar they can get for South Dakota. There is a reason Thune was once voted Porker of the Year. This new government program he conjured up trying to give money to gas stations to install blender pumps is a good example. Gas stations and ethanol producers ought to be funding their own expansion - not taxpayers. Thune's cow gas bag rhetoric and Noem's fairy dust demagoguery show they're more interested in grandstanding than crafting policy.
Now to the remainder of my observation. Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) is the real deal when it comes to real solutions. Democrats and more Republicans ought to join him as he points out that there is a whole lot of duplicative federal bureaucracy that ought to be streamlined for savings, and to re-focus that money where it is better used including existing social programs. If Democrats worked with him, things would change for the better in DC. I used to think he was a wingnut, but I've come to see him as a serious and substantive Senator. Kind of like Stace Nelson. It is people like these who depart from the "typical politician/party hack" role who stand the most chance of making a difference.