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By
The Associated Press
.
Published: Sun, June 15, 2008 - 10:59 am
Last Updated: Sun, June 15, 2008 - 11:02 am
WASHINGTON (AP) - You think gas is costing you a lot of money?Consider the pain at the pump for the Postal Service.
Every time the price of a gallon of gas goes up a penny, it
costs the Postal Service an additional 8 million dollars a year.
The service spent six and a-half billion dollars on
transportation last year, a-half billion more than the year before.
The Post Office operates the largest civilian fleet of vehicles
in the country, with 215,000 of them. And the private truckers and
airlines that work for it are also feeling the pinch.
The Postal Service is helped by the fact that it's now easier
for it to raise the price of postage but the increase can't go
above the inflation rate.
It also gets a discount for buying gas and diesel fuel in bulk.
But even those prices are headed up.
(Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
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The postage went up. More people will be mailing bills instead of using gas to drive to the utility companies. That means the post office gets a lot more money for delivering the mail to the same routes. If some of these postal carriers would put the right mail in the right box the first time, there would be no need for a second trip. That would save money.