After a five-week vacation, anybody heading back to the office might want to take things a little slowly.
But Congress can't take too long to get back to business - and the U.S. Postal Service, now losing $25 million a day, certainly can't afford dawdling by the lawmakers in considering its plight.
The crisis at the Postal Service is as real as it gets. Over the summer, the agency had its first default on a $5.5 billion payment for health-care costs. Soon, another $5.6 billion payment will be due to cover pension obligations for 547,000 postal workers.
Meanwhile, reforms that might make it possible for the Postal Service to recover from the loss of many first-class mail customers to e-mail and other competitors have been hung up on Capitol Hill while Congress was in recess.
