The United States Postal Service says they want to replace their fleet of 163,000 delivery trucks with 180,000 bigger and more efficient vehicles. But the post office is operating with a $5.51 billion budget deficit and, as Yahoo Finance Editor-in-Chief Aaron Task points out, a Republican led Congress isn’t exactly opening up the checkbook.
“They’re talking about buying 180,000 of these next generation vehicles and they go for around $30,000 each,” Task points out. “That’s about $5 billion right there... they’ve already tapped out their line of credit with the U.S. Treasury.”
Task says one way to grease the skids is to give the contract for the new vehicles to an American automaker.
GM made all the chassis for the existing fleet and could stand to make billions should they win the new contract.
Yahoo Finance’s Rick Newman says it’s all but certain GM or Ford would win any new contract.
“This will get done exactly the way big defense contracts get done,” he says. “They’re gonna spread the spending around among enough states, they’ll develop a coalition of lawmakers... and Congress is gonna happily spend this money once it benefits members in 20 states.”
Yahoo Finance reached out to the Post Office for clarification on the plan. A spokeswoman there told us they have issued a "request for information" to potential suppliers (it's a post on a government website that advertises for potential contracts) for 180,000 new vehicles. While they "don't necessarily do an upfront cost analysis" they confirmed our own estimate of $5 billion for the project.
While not yet a part of any actual budget, the USPS says they will pay for the upgrade through postage revenue. While they assure taxpayers they won’t be footing the bill it doesn’t seem beyond the realm of possibility that prices for those sending letters and packages would need to go up given the budget shortfall and the large expenditure.
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The USPS spokeswoman says the current $5 billion deficit is related to pre-funded payment and said "we get the money through products, we're making money, we're getting to the point where we're in more of a financial position to invest money."
What do you think? Would you pay more to send a package if it got their more efficiently in a brand new truck?
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