>>> the uncertain future of the usps is going to be heard on capitol hill here. the post office had $8 billion losses the last two years because people are using the internet instead of traditional mail. officials say they won't be able to make this month's $5.5 billion payment to cover healthcare costs. >>> michele bachmann's strategists are stepping down as campaign manager because he is 68 and no longer has the stamina for the 14-hour workdays that are required. >> and they are just beginning. >>> 5:53 now. a man running for mayor of san ramon says the theft of campaign signs is getting out of hand. in the past week bill clarkson has lost about $400 worth of signs and hours of volunteer work. a first round of signs went missing sunday, then two more rounds of signs went missing on monday and wednesday.

usps requested the opinion on the fairness and equity of the opm method.er taking competitive bids the segal company was selected to analyze and make recommendations. we met with stakeholders and reviewed the actuarial and accounting standards, and we concluded that the most relevant benchmark was the accounting standard applicable to private companies. this was the only one that had as the primary objective the matching of revenues in the postal service's case, selling postage, with the labor cost to produce those revenues. that was our assessment of the appropriate basis for evaluating the fairness of the csrs cost allocation. the accounting standard provides clear and not discretionary direction with regard to plans such as csrs that provide non uniform benefit accruals, in this case higher accruals in later years of employment. the expense charge requires following the plan cycle formula as opium was doing. it also requires the cost allocation for a final average salary plan like csrs must reflect the anticipated future salary at termination or retirem

>>o'toole: our usp is that the sailors compete for a prize fund. we're the only professional series where they are competing for cash. >>berntsson: what you see here as former olympic sailors, america's cup sailors that are on our tour. >>bruni: boat to boat its very close. and i love it so this is the best circuit in match racing by far. >>reporter: in marstrand you can almost reach out and touch those boats ... a crucial part of the tour's strategy... >>lim: the modern model for match racing has to be held in an arena like manner. that's very important. something like this where the crowds can come in close. >>sohtell: five days before the event and nothing is here. no tents. no it. no toilets. no nothing. and in fivedays we create something that can host 150,000 people. >>reporter: at this regatta...the skippers sail in every one of the identical 37ft yachts. in a series of very short races.... >>jong: since each race is only about twenty minutes long, any mistake you make; that's pretty much it. >>reporter: the tour shares special event status

oversees the post office, has introduced a bill to do that, ending saturday delivery could save the uspsllion a year. unforeign, it would eliminate 20,000 jobs. technology will also lighten the volume of u.s. paper mail. e-mail, smart phones, and other tech apps have decreased the volume of hand-delivered mail by 20% over the course lasts five years. is this a constitutional question? u.s. constitution? >> yeah, i think it is. u.s. post office i believe is in there. i may be wrong, but the figures are -- they're going to cut out 120,000 jobs of the 600,000 of the post office because it's got an $8.5 billion deficit, and the reason is we all know e- mail, fedex and all these other things are taking it over. but i think it's going to be there, still there be there, but our generation, penmanship generation, one that writes letters s different from the next generation, beyond which doesn't even print very well. >> by law, they have to deliver mail six days a week some congress has to change the law. but i've been noticing that the post office is running paid advertising on television, point

well, the usps is a quasi government organization.t has to make enough money to pay the freight but can't make the changes in how the operates like eliminating saturday delivery without the permission of congress. what business can run that way? the postmaster told the government he doesn't want any federal money. he wants enough flexibility to survive. the white house says it is sending a plan to do that, and i hope they know it absolutely positively should have been there yesterday. >> you know, i have to say, stop by the post office saturday before labor day and i'm shocked and appalled it's closed. the one day i need it but i haven't been there in months. >> okay. it's all right. >> i know. lesson learned. thank you, derek. >>> okay. what is going on? >> we're going to have river flooding. there is no doubt about it. a different scenario with irene. all of the rain with irene is east. i 95. the heavy rain is in the mountains and that does not bowed well for the potomac river. we have closed the trail for tomorrow morning and also

the usps can't lay it off during low volume periods. whether they sit in the cafeteria therks can be both and do nothing to the tune of 4.3 million so far this year. dana sthis a good argument as to why we should privatize the male system? private industry hasn't solved this either and then they fire everybody and pay huge break kedges during a bust and hire them all back. nobody figured this out. and for a $9 billion loss a year, the service will take a picture of you. there is a lot of things you spend money on. it is a good investment. >> wow, you convinced me. >> come to think of it, i have always liked the postal service. >> they used to spend $30 million. that's a good sign, right? i don't know. just say what you want. >> i know you come to people, greg, for these quickie punch lines, and sometimes i have a thought. >> all right. >> and what do you make of this? >> the idea that the post office is doing a great job. it is against the law to compete with the post office. you use federal express. the reason it has to be delivered ov

as far as the usps goes, labor makes up 80% of the post office costs. that's a huge chunk right there. for its rivals like ups and fedex, it makes up about half of that. because the postal service's union contract, the post office couldn't lay off workers, only negotiated recently. the unions vowing to fight back to keep so many people from being let go. now another sticking point here is postal workers get brt health benefits than most other federal employees. you pile all of this on, alina, it's all these controversial issues that's keeping everybody from agreeing but essentially leaving the agency in limbo. >> let's hope they fix it. >> i lick my mail delivery, too. >> it would be awful if the post office shut down. alison, thank you. >>> sarah palin having trouble on the campaign trail. trouble, she's not an official candidate yet. >> polls? they're for strippers and cross country skiers. >> the folksy sarah palin is back. she's even releasing a jobs plan. but the big question, of course, is will she or won't she run? and when does she need to decid

usps requested the opinion on the fairness and equity of the opm method.g competitive bids the segal company was selected to analyze and make recommendations. we met with stakeholders and reviewed the actuarial and accounting standards, and we concluded that the most relevant benchmark was the accounting standard applicable to private companies. this was the only one that had as the primary objective the matching of revenues in the postal service's case, selling postage, with the labor cost to produce those revenues. that was our assessment of the appropriate basis for evaluating the fairness of the csrs cost allocation. the accounting standard provides clear and not discretionary direction with regard to plans such as csrs that provide non uniform benefit accruals, in this case higher accruals in later years of employment. the expense charge requires following the plan cycle formula as opium was doing. it also requires the cost allocation for a final average salary plan like csrs must reflect the anticipated future salary at termination or retirement and

usps requested the opinion on the fairness and equity of the opm method.er taking competitive bids the segal company was selected to analyze and make recommendations. we met with stakeholders and reviewed the actuarial and accounting standards, and we concluded that the most relevant benchmark was the accounting standard applicable to private companies. this was the only one that had as the primary objective the matching of revenues in the postal service's case, selling postage, with the labor cost to produce those revenues. that was our assessment of the appropriate basis for evaluating the fairness of the csrs cost allocation. the accounting standard provides clear and not discretionary direction with regard to plans such as csrs that provide non uniform benefit accruals, in this case higher accruals in later years of employment. the expense charge requires following the plan cycle formula as opium was doing. it also requires the cost allocation for a final average salary plan like csrs must reflect the anticipated future salary at termination or retirem

usps facing a second straight year of loss of some $8 billion a year. postmaster general is among the witnesses to speak before two senate committees. postal officials won't be able to make this month's $5.5 billion payment to cover future employee healthcare costs. >>> time for a look at what's coming up on "the early show." >> chris wragge tells us what to expect from new york. chris? >> coming up on the early show, wildfires texas burn hundreds of homes and force thousands to evacuate. we'll ask texas governor rick perry if his state can do anything more to put a lid on the fires. plus shake-up in the bachmann campaign. her top strategist and gop veteran says it's a two candidate race and michele bachmann is not one of the two. we have all that and much more coming up on "the early show." >>> all right, chris. we thank you. coming up, the tale of -- quite the tale this morning for one east bay family. >> we're talking about the mccarthy family who snapped these pictures after a bear damaged their car in west lake tahoe. a honking horn woke them. the

officials with usps are headed to capitol hill today with a dire warning.o go broke. the postal service says it doesn't have enough cash to make a $5.5 billion payment toward employee health care at the end of the month. luke russert joining me from capitol hill. luke, what's going to happen here? >> reporter: it's quite an amazing story here, greg. around 2:00 p.m. the senate committee that's in charge of how the post office operates is going to hear some testimony from the postmaster general. he's expected to say look if it goes at the current rate of the u.s. postal service they won't be able to operate much past the winter and the summer months. they have a $9.2 billion deficit on their hands. much of the reason because of such new technology that's taken over. email has taken a lot of business away from the u.s. postal service and some things they need to do. there's some changes they want to put forward. end saturday delivery, slash up to 120,000 jobs, close up to 3700 branchs. it's interesting a lot of people think that the government runs the postal

it would force a bigger plan to stabilize the usps which faces a $10 billion deficit this year.ee-month reprieve, the post office will likely run out of cash by next year without a long-term solution. >> raise the price of stamps, come on. >> it's really -- this is ridiculous. >> but part of the solution is -- come on. >> they're going to close a lot of post offices and they'll stop delivering on saturday. >> they better not close the one in pennsylvania. i heard that was happening. >> they'll close it down and no more monday delivery. let's look at the cost. the post office, 83 cents of every dollar goes to labor cost. fedex, 32 cents of every dollar goes to labor cost. let's look at reality. they have to look at the contracts they're carrying and the costs that they've incurred. >> you're right about that. >>> stopping shake-ups on wall street today affecting two of the most powerful women in american business. one of these firings happening on the phone. i have to say, i've been fired, but not on the phone. it's manly to do it in person if you have to do it. let's get a check

both of those together have really created a very tough financial situation for usp. >> what's the thinkinghinking is that in most companies we have unfunded liabilities. you have all these obligations and no likely load of ever meeting them. the post office has the opposite situation. >> that's right. the idea behind the prefunding is this. the fact that our volume will go down over time there has been concern we wouldn't be able to pay these benefits later on so we've been required by law to prepay them. we're trying to change the process. we're proposing we take over our own health care system and pull the cost downs and in effect eliminate the need to prefund going forward. >> if you got that way, how much money might you be able to get out of the system? how much money that has already been banked would you be able to take out. >> the liability is $90 billion. we've paid $44 billion into it. we think that we would be able to offset the additional $46 billion. >> okay. what does that do for you on an operating base this? how much money does the post office lose just for being the post o

without this mandate, usps would actually have a $611 million benefit that they could help out in this tough economy. . there are 6 5,000 workers not at fault for -- there are 685,000 workers not at fault for this requirement and this does not need to continue. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentleman rise? >> i rise to hob honor ted williams, the last baseball player to hit .400 or better for a season, a feat he accomplished 70 years ago this month, in 1941. he wasn't just a remarkable baseball player, he was a remarkable american, who served his country as a marine corps pilot in world war ii and the korean war. he once said, a man has to have goals for a day or a lifetime an that was mine, to have people say, there goes ted williams, the greatest hit whore ever lived, enquote. mr. stearns: not only did he have a goal, he harnessed the determination and hard work necessary to succeed. i honor a man who was a friend a constituent, and a great american on the anniversary of his greatest achievement. he will always be remembered as baseball's greatest hitter. the spe

there are several other proposals that the usps has put forward in hopes of somehow getting congress to help them along in cutting costs, but then of course lawmakers say why would you cut back on delivery at a time when you clearly need to be generating revenue? host: when it comes to congress' history of helping the postal service in this situation, how often does the postal service ask for this kind of relief? how willing has congress been in the past? guest: they have been asking for this for at least the last three years since things started to go south after 2006. and congress hasn't budged. every year around this time you see the postmaster general come to the hill and say here's what we need you to do. we are cutting back, laying off workers, closing offices, but we can only go so far. we need you, congress, to control us, because post office is written in the constitution, to give us all sorts of different concessions. the ability to set our delivery schedule. the ability to sell things besides postage and envelopes and priority mail services in our post offices. the ability