too many mailmen, not enough nail to carry them. the most obvious thing is the internet. people are paying bills online. because of this the volume of first class mail has dropped about 20% in the past 20 years. and with that drop comes a drop in postal service revenues. they would have lost $10 billion if congress had not extended the deadline for bills that owed the u.s. treasury. and she basically said they they will continue to drop now. >> senator is a ranking member of the affairs committee has called the uspc financial situation, quote, dire. what legislative solution is that committee working on? >> that city has a bipartisan bill. it came out in november. and it's expected in the next few weeks before president's day or just after president's day. and basically it would allow the postal service to rerup a refund. right now the postal service has half a million postal workers. it has too many. it needs to buy out. they will also be phasing out door to door delivery. allow people to buy fishing licenses at the local post offices and also to be consolidating. he wan

it has too many mailmen, not enough mail to carry, too many post offices and really not enough customers. the most obvious thing is the internet. people these days are paying their bills online. and because of this, the volume of first-class mail has dropped about 20% in the past five years. and with that drop comes a drop in postal service revenues. so, last year, the postal service lost about $5 billion, but it would have lost about $10 billion if congress had not extended the deadline for bills it actually owed the u.s. treasury, and that comes on top of the losses from 2010 as well, $8.5 billion. and donahoe has basically said that revenues are going to continue to drop now, since people are using the internet, rather than licking the backs of stamps and affixing them on envelopes. >> well, senator susan collins of maine, ranking member of the governmental affairs committee, called the usps financial system "dire." what legislative solution is that committee working on? >> so, that committee actually has a bipartisan bill. it came out of the committee, i believe, in november. and it'

people in the crowd and they represented the commissioners and the mayor and the preachers and the mailmeny were all there. and behind us on the stage were the people who were working in their brand-new shiny uniforms. they got to go home and say, son, eight job today. it's going to be better. that's what it's about. let nothing stand in the way of building a prosperous ohio, a richer ohio, an ohio free of poverty and unemployment -- oh, we'll never get to all of that, but the closer we get to it, the better off we are. and it is such an exciting time for all of us to work together to do good. god bless our country, and god bless ohio. thank you all very much. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. mr. durbin: the january jobs report shows that president obama and many have joined together to help put our economy on the path to recovery. the economy added 257,000 private-sector jobs in january. that's the 23rd month in a row that the economy added private-sector jobs, for a total of 3.7 million payroll jobs over that same period. in january the unemployment rate fell again f