Two things we need to do, as a nation

Two big  things we need to do as a country, it seems, at minimum are, for once and for all, create a very real energy policy we can all support and get behind for time to come, Left and Right and all political parties.  


There's too many things we'd gain from this:  We could get out of the Middle East and all their wars and tribal fighting which we need to do so badly; we could, hopefully, stop hemorrhaging money to that same region; we could get into clean, renewable energy which will be so important for the next century and, finally, we could also hopefully pollute far less than we do now, whether we choose to believe in global warming or not.


The second big thing we need to do as a nation is come up with a way to phase out the United States Postal Service.  From the news today:


U.S. postal service says default possible, billions lost


WASHINGTON – The Postal Service is continuing to hemorrhage money, reporting a loss Tuesday of more than $2 billion over the first three months of the year and warning it could be forced to default on federal payments.

The agency says the $2.2 billion loss covers Jan. 1 to March 31, 2011 — sharply higher than the net loss of $1.6 billion for the same period last year. The post office also said it will have reached its borrowing limit, set by Congress, of $15 billion by the end of the fiscal year.

Unless Congress intervenes, the Postal Service said, the agency won't have the cash for certain payment to the government, such as billions for a trust fund to provide health care benefits for future retirees.

Total mail volume, about 41 billion pieces, was down 3.1 percent for the January to March period, compared to the same time a year earlier, the Postal Service said. A modest increase in revenue from standard mail wasn't enough to offset the revenue loss from fewer pieces of first-class mail.

In the last three years, the agency has cut over 130,000 jobs. And it's making more cuts, with the elimination of about 7,500 administrative jobs in regional offices.

And before you get hot under the collar about "our tax dollars being wasted", know this:

The Postal Service does not receive tax money for its operations.

We know virtually everything is going digital, what with our computers.  We need a good plan to transfer the USPS from the behemoth it is to phasing it out.  

It won't be easy and it won't be pretty but how much more handwriting on the wall do we need?

Next up:  Universal health care.


I'm not holding my breath.