Good News

I try to keep this blog as much about music as I possibly can, but last week there was a bit of good news about the announced end of Saturday mail delivery. It seems that Congress has stepped in to put the kibosh on said plans. The Postal Service had planned to cut Saturday mail delivery at the end of August 2013, in an effort to reduce cost and become more efficient.

However, Congress passed a law in 1987 requiring that mail be delivered six days a week. It did so again several weeks ago when it passed a stop gap budget measure, raising the issue of the legality of the Postal Service's decision. The Postal Service Board of Governors stated last week, however, that they would extend six day mail delivery while they wait for Congress to come up with an alternative or grant them permission to make the change.

The Postal Service had stated that they were only going stop delivering first class mail, while they they continued to deliver packages and express mail. This would have had an impact on rural communities and the elderly as well. It's just my opinion, but I'm sure that there are many others who also breathed a collective sigh of relief.

While it's true that advances in computer technology, such as smartphones and tablet PCs, have made things like email and online bill paying speedier and convenient for some, there is still a large portion of the population that has yet to adopt the trend, and have yet to become, "wired." For those individuals, an extra day of mail delivery could in effect be like a life line.

Having lost a reported 15.9 billion dollars last year, this is clearly a cost cutting measure. But, surely there must be some other way, as there doesn't appear to be any problem getting the mail to it's designated recipients every Saturday. The stop gap budget measure passed several weeks ago ensures that six day mail service will continue, at least until the end of the fiscal year which is September 30th. That should be enough time to come up with at least a temporary fix. Of course, the hope is that a solution will be arrived at, so that we can all continue to receive the kind of good news that we got last week, for some time into the future.