A Call To Budget Bipartisanship! Let’s Stop Express Mailing Empty Containers!
Why not schedule a vote on this today, Speaker Boehner?! Senator Reid, here’s something you can stand up for! That is, if you were in town . . . Ah well, when you get back, make the item below – from the President’s 2012 budget proposal – a separate bill and pass it immediately. Rally the country.
Below – it’s not a joke – is an item from the TERMINATIONS, REDUCTIONS, AND SAVINGS portion of the proposed 2012 federal budget.
Here’s a test of the so-called new age of civility. Can we all agree on this?
OTHER SAVINGS: STOP THE EXPRESS DELIVERY OF EMPTY CONTAINERS
Department of Agriculture
A Department of Agriculture (USDA) employee within the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) stated that “each day many laboratory samples are sent out through Fed Ex express, next day service. While it is important to get our samples to the lab as quickly as possible, it is not as important to get the container back. The laboratory sends the sample box back to the originator by the same express method.” The employee suggests that FSIS could save money by having those boxes shipped back through regular ground service. USDA agrees, and is asking FSIS to ship empty sample containers by standard service.
FSIS currently collects approximately 125,000 samples per year by sending laboratory sample packages from the inspection facility to one of three Agency field labs. The Agency estimates that it costs $15.00 per round trip or a total cost of $1,875,000 for shipping alone. If the Agency started shipping back the laboratory sample packages by ground, it believes it could save approximately $350,000 in 2012.
Funding Summary
(In millions of dollars)
. 2011 2012 2011-2015
Savings………-0.150 -0.350 -1.050
Justification
The assumptions are that the one-way return of the five pound package costs an average of $6.14 to ship overnight and if shipped by ground, the cost falls to an average of $3.48 or a savings of $2.66 per shipment. This program will be launched in January 2011 providing an estimated 2011 savings of $150,000.
The assumptions are that the one-way return of the five pound package costs an average of $6.14 to ship overnight and if shipped by ground, the cost falls to an average of $3.48 or a savings of $2.66 per shipment. This program will be launched in January 2011 providing an estimated 2011 savings of $150,000.
Why not just . . . “Justification . . . DUH!” We all applaud the USDA employee who thought of this – really they ought provide his/her name. I’m going to ask USDA whether a monetary award followed . . . and if their budget permitted any awards at all . . .
In any event, how about passing along the savings to the 99ers, those out of work for more than 99 weeks, and ineligible for further unemployment insurance benefits)? Now there’s a non-starter, eh, Speaker Boehner?
