The postal service has given congress more time to keep it from closing more than 250 distribution centers and 3700 local post offices. Missouri’s senior senator thinks Congress can make the most of that time.
The postal service has delayed its closings of facilities for five months–two distribution centers and 167 post offices in Missouri among them. The House and Senate are working on bills that supporters hope puts the Postal Service on a sound financial footing for the foreseeable future.
Senator McCaskill says Congress will be able to relieve the postal service of having to pre-funding pensions and healthcare for 75 years into the future, which she says no private business or government does. She says Congress also needs to let the postal service be entrepreneurial.
But she says Congress has handcuffed the postal services by limiting what it can charge and limiting what it can sell and where it can transact business. She says the service should be able to operate postal windows at existing businesses, especially in the small towns where the post office building will be closed.
McCaskill doesn’t think congressional action will keep all local offices open, but it can save many of them and save service in other towns by allowing local businesses to contract to perform some postal service duties.
Audio: Listen to McCaskill comments 4:42 mp3
