The U.S. Postal Service faces an uncertain – and possibly grim – future due to the rapid growth of electronic communications and commerce, according to Congress’ investigative arm, the General Accounting Office. “The USPS may be nearing the end of an era,” the GAO said in its latest report on the USPS to the House postal subcommittee. According to the report, while the USPS has made notable financial and delivery performance improvements in the late `90s, it is vulnerable to losses in its core business. “Our bottom line is that the USPS faces a precarious situation in the future, even though things look good now,” said GAO government business operations director Bernard Ungar while testifying before the House postal subcommittee chaired by Rep. John McHugh (R-NY). Alliance of Nonprofit Mailers executive director Neal Denton said mailers “look forward to see what the postal service will do to recapture the revenue it loses because of a shift to electronic communications, how ag! gressive it will be to deliver p roducts purchased online and how much new revenue that will generate.” With an oblique reference to his postal reform bill pending before the House Government Reform Committee, McHugh said both Ungar’s testimony and the GAO report were a “wake-up call” for reform. Without it, he added, the nation faces “a major postal crisis if the USPS can’t adapt to a communications environment of growing competition.” That, Postmaster General William J. Henderson told the panel, “is why we have been vocal in calling for reform” to give the USPS pricing and product flexibilities. Without it, “dramatic cuts…the likes of which we have never seen” will be necessary to keep the USPS alive.
Network
