Update: No Mail On Tuesdays?

As an update to u>my piece on USPS<, Joe Davidson's Federal Diary column u>in today's Washington Post< notes that "The chairman of the House Appropriations subcommittee on financial services and general government, which controls the federal portion of the U.S. Postal Service budget, says no way. Rep. José E. Serrano (D-N.Y.) said “I will retain the prohibition on service cuts in my bill.”

As Davidson archly comments, “Note the lack of any “we” or “the Congress” in his comment. Subcommittee chairmen of the House Appropriations Committee are often called “cardinals” because of their power. Cardinal Serrano has made it clear that he will use that power to maintain six-day deliveries.”

Serrano stated that “People depend on regular mail delivery and would be greatly inconvenienced by missing a day's delivery. The Postal Service must manage its operations in ways that will not cause consumers to miss out on mail service.”

All very nice, but it's hard to believe that that Serrano would favor major job cuts at USPS as a way to "manage its operations." If service cuts and job cuts are out, what's left? So Congress needs to fix the healthcare funding issue. The Postal Service is supposed to be run as a business, albeit one with a universal service obligation, but it can't make its balance sheet look better with a $5.4 billion charge that no other business has to pay.