USPS dying a natural death? no, it's Repug murder

[boutons_deux]

Don't Let Business Lobbyists Kill the Post Office


The Times has an editorial today about the future of the U.S. Postal Service:

Postal officials say they must close about 3,700 underused post offices (there are 32,000 nationally) while offering alternative services through local businesses. They also want to consolidate hundreds of regional processing centers and eliminate Saturday mail deliveries.

An aide to Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont was warning me about this last week. There are organic reasons for all of this: The U.S. Postal Service is staring down the same barrel trained at our magazine and newspaper businesses, i.e. its revenue model is being wiped out by the internet.

But politics also plays a huge part in this. In 2006, in what looks like an attempt to bust the Postal Workers' Union, George Bush signed into law the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006. This law required the Postal Service to pre-fund 100 percent of its entire future obligations for 75 years of health benefits to its employees – and not only do it, but do it within ten years. No other organization, public or private, has to pre-fund 100 percent of its future health benefits.

"No one prefunds at more than 30 percent," Anthony Vegliante, the U.S. Postal Service's executive vice president, told reporters last year.

The new law forced the postal service to come up with about $5.5 billion a year for the ten years following the bill's passage. In 2006, before those payments kicked in, the USPS generated a small profit. Not surprisingly, the USPS is now basically broke.

The 2006 law also bars the Postal Service from offering "nonpostal services," which means the USPS can't, say, open up a bank, or an internet cafe, or come up with any new entrepreneurial ideas to generate new income, as postal services do in other countries.

The transparent purpose of this law, which was pushed heavily by industry lobbyists, was to break a public sector union and privatize the mail industry. Before the 2006 act, the postal service did one thing, did it well, and, minus the need to generate profits and bonuses for executives, did it cheaply. It paid for itself and was not a burden to taxpayers.

Post offices also have a huge non-financial impact: In a lot of small towns, the post office is the town, and shutting them down will basically remove the only casual meeting place for people in mountain areas and remote farming villages and so on. Of course, there's always one Wal-Mart for every dozen or so post offices, so people I guess can drive the extra twenty miles and meet there ...

This is a classic example of private-sector lobbyists using the government to protect its profits and keep prices inflated. Sen. Sanders is pushing a bill that would delay the end of Saturday delivery for two years, and prevent a number of post-office closings, but the writing is on the wall, unless there's a public outcry. So definitely write your congressman and ask him to roll back Bush's idiotic law, and at least give the Post Office a chance to sink or swim on its own.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/dont-let-business-lobbyists-kill-the-post-office-20120423#ixzz1syU43eNJ

========

As with killing public schools (so property tax dollars get vouchered to for-profit charter schools), this USPS manufactured crisis is all about the 1% stealing Human-Americans' wealth.

ACA
Medicare
Medicaid
SS
public schools
public utilities
etc, etc

All are targeted for UCA killing and/or takeover.

[Blake]

I really want to care that the USPS is in trouble, but the apathy just keeps setting in.

[boutons_deux]

Just wait til you see the prices of the for-profit replacement.

[Blake]

Just wait til you see the prices of the for-profit replacement.

Considering how much stamp money I've saved over the last 10 years thanks to the internets, I'm still finding it hard to dig up some concern.

[TeyshaBlue]

lol. Taibbi calling it Bush's idiotic law.
lol Waxman (D) co-sponsor
lol Davis (D) co-sponsor
lol Passed Senate without amendment by Unanimous Consent.

lol Repug murder

[DarrinS]

USPS brings my junk mail

FedEx/UPS brings my goodies

enough said

[TeyshaBlue]

:rolleyesYou left out the leading paragraph, boutons. Wonder why?

The Times has an editorial today about the future of the U.S. Postal Service:

Postal officials say they must close about 3,700 underused post offices (there are 32,000 nationally) while offering alternative services through local businesses. They also want to consolidate hundreds of regional processing centers and eliminate Saturday mail deliveries.

An aide to Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont was warning me about this last week. There are organic reasons for all of this: The U.S. Postal Service is staring down the same barrel trained at our magazine and newspaper businesses, i.e. its revenue model is being wiped out by the internet.
Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/dont-let-business-lobbyists-kill-the-post-office-20120423#ixzz1syYAnsNG

[Sportcamper]

http://img62.imageshack.us/img62/2016/obamablamebushtoday.jpg

[ElNono]

I think the USPS has to downsize and pick it's spots, but I would really hate to see them go away. I still use them the most and I certainly ain't looking forward to paying $2/$3 dollars to send a letter.

[cantthinkofanything]

Fuck yo mail fools

[boutons_deux]

The Post Office Is Not an Other. The Post Office Is Us.

As has become clear over the past five years, conservative politicians have decided that we don't need a post office any more. Under cover of technology, and using the rise of e-mail as an alibi, the Congress quite deliberately has engaged in a campaign to make the United States Postal System an unsustainable concern. They've done it quite well, actually.

In 2006, when nobody was paying attention, a lame duck session of Congress, in which there was still a Republican majority, passed a neat little poison-pill called the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act, which required the USPS to pre-fund 75 years worth of health-care benefits over the next 10 years. (No other government entity ever has been required to do anything like this.) Among other things, this prevented the USPS from raising rates, or doing anything else that would lift the weight of the fiscal millstone that had been hung upon it. That this was a deliberate act of sabotage was revealed by the fact that a report indicated that, absent this pre-payment requirement, the USPS would be running a profit of $2.5 billion. With the requirement, the service is $24 billion in the hole.

In addition, consider how often the USPS is used as a punchline for the failure of government services. This became particularly acute during the debate over the Affordable Care Act, when "Do you want to hand health care over to the people who run the post office?" became the go-to comedy bit for opponents of the reforms. Of course, all the service problems you see in the USPS are a result of cutbacks forced by the poison-pill the service was fed six years ago

The entire modern conservative movement consists of an ongoing attempt to sever the relationship of a self-governing people to their government, to break down the concept of a political commonwealth. Many of the conservative attempts to wedge people apart through the use of an Other to be feared and despised — whether that was black people, or empowered women, or immigrants, or gay people — have been framed to attack the government's attempts to ameliorate discrimination against the groups in question. In modern conservative thought, then, and in the mindset it seeks to ingrain on the people of the country, the government is the ultimate Other.

In doing so, the corporate masters of the conservative movement are good with all of this because they seek a wary, frightened and insecure people. Those people are too cowed to make waves, too spooked to assert their rights as citizens, too confused to demand accountability.

http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/the-post-office-lives-8757430

A fundamental tenent of conservative/Repug/VRWC philosophy is that all govt is bad, and must be killed.

So conservative/Repug/VRWC willfully, maliciously hamstrings, limits, and mismanages the USPS, complemented with the hate media non-stop trashing USPS.

Their msg is St Ronnie's: govt IS the problem, and USPS fails strictly because it IS govt.

[boutons_deux]

Repugs continue their attack on USPS:


There’s Hidden Union Busting in Congressman Issa’s Postal Reform Bill

Rep. Darrell Issa’s (R-CA) recently introduced postal reform bill closely follows the strategy of Republican governors who are using budget problems to attack collective bargaining rights and weaken political opponents. This strategy ignores alternative methods of closing budget shortfalls and instead insists that public employee pay is the cause of budget gaps and that collective bargaining must go.

Rep. Issa’s targeting of postal employees shows that the war on workers’ rights is not just in state capitols but is also at the post office. Any bill that Congress passes to address budget issues at the USPS needs to strip out these nasty and unnecessary attacks on workers. The Postal Service needs real reform and not political maneuvering from the right-wing playbook.

http://www.americanprogressaction.org/issues/2011/07/union_busting.html

[Wild Cobra Kai]

It's funny though, how the GOP did a 180 on the rural post office closings. No GOP voters out there... :rolleyes

[spursncowboys]

Anything being overnighted by any mail company or entity goes to fedex.

[cherylsteele]

I haven't sent a letter/payment or anything via USPS in a long time. I do all my bill paying online or by phone. I do get my bills from the mail, but don't really need them, I get mainly junk mail.

[Wild Cobra]

I think the USPS has to downsize and pick it's spots, but I would really hate to see them go away. I still use them the most and I certainly ain't looking forward to paying $2/$3 dollars to send a letter.

It really doesn't have much to do with letter prices anymore. Junk mail has been paying their way for a long time. It is the mandates by congress. The Postal Service has been able to stay in the black when the internet took the place of bill payments, letters, etc. It was when congress mandated this refunding of the retirement accounts that they started having a hard time.

[boutons_deux]

Congress also limits USPS expansion into new services, which would leverage the investments taxpayers have made in building the USPS infrastructure.

[Wild Cobra]

The POSTAL ACCOUNTABILITY AND ENHANCEMENT ACT (http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/PLAW-109publ435/pdf/PLAW-109publ435.pdf) had a republic sponsor, but 2/3rds the cosponsors were democrats. Passed by unanimous voice vote in the house and senate. Within the bill is this:


‘‘(3)(A) The United States Postal Service shall pay into such
Fund—
‘‘(i) $5,400,000,000, not later than September 30, 2007;
‘‘(ii) $5,600,000,000, not later than September 30, 2008;
‘‘(iii) $5,400,000,000, not later than September 30, 2009;
‘‘(iv) $5,500,000,000, not later than September 30, 2010;
‘‘(v) $5,500,000,000, not later than September 30, 2011;
‘‘(vi) $5,600,000,000, not later than September 30, 2012;
‘‘(vii) $5,600,000,000, not later than September 30, 2013;
‘‘(viii) $5,700,000,000, not later than September 30, 2014;
‘‘(ix) $5,700,000,000, not later than September 30, 2015;
and
‘‘(x) $5,800,000,000, not later than September 30, 2016.

The saw the Postal Service as a cash cow to help find more money to spend.

[Wild Cobra]

Congress also limits USPS expansion into new services, which would leverage the investments taxpayers have made in building the USPS infrastructure.

How do you figure? Tax dollars do not support the Postal Service.

[boutons_deux]

tax dollars built 1000s of post offices and 1000s of vehicules, sorting centers, airplanes, etc before USPS was bogusly "privatized".

[Wild Cobra]

tax dollars built 1000s of post offices and 1000s of vehicules, sorting centers, airplanes, etc before USPS was bogusly "privatized".
LOL...

If you say so... Maybe before the changes in the 70's when it was pretty much privatized, but there is nothing today that old that is used except some buildings.

Besides...

The Post Office is a specific obligation outlined in the congress, so your complaints have zero merit.

[boutons_deux]

USPS has bldings and the land. and I bet a lot of other stuff that goes back pre-privatization.

[Wild Cobra]

USPS has bldings and the land. and I bet a lot of other stuff that goes back pre-privatization.
Probably so Shazbot, but it will be a small share of their assets. I'll bet only for the old post offices. Nearly all, if not all the processing plants are newer than the timeframe the government financially required the Postal Service to be independent of tax dollars. The Postal Service has also built newer and larger buildings and consolidated smaller Post Offices for a couple decades at least now, before any of financial crisis started. Now if you are worried about who owes who what, the older CSR retirement system account is overpaid already by about $80 billion by some estimates. This is money that is not sitting anywhere, but was already spent by congress. Some people think congress wants to destroy the Postal Service after the prefunding of the FERS retirement system, so they can have more free money... stolen rather than borrowed... that they will never have to pay back.

My new name for you is Shazbot. You are just a republican hating bot. You prove that every time when you "repug this... repug that..." Maybe if you realized the demonrats are no better, people may respect what you have to say. Your bias is blinding you.

vWB3czWRN1Q

[Blake]

You are just a republican hating bot. You prove that every time when you "repug this... repug that..." Maybe if you realized the demonrats are no better, people may respect what you have to say. Your bias is blinding you.


Wild Cobra preaching on biased posting

lol

[Wild Cobra]

We all have bias, but ShazBot goes out of his way to always blame the "repugs." This issue has equal blame, yet he only blames the republicans. The truth is, both sides did this.

ShazBot...

Why didn't your democrats fix this problem when they controlled both houses and the presidency after the 2008 elections?

[boutons_deux]

Postal Service Set To Default On Pension Payment For First Time, But Congress Could Easily Fix The Problem

In 2006, the Republican-led Congress passed an unnecessary law requiring the United States Postal Service to prefund its pension benefits for 75 years through a $5.5 billion annual payment. The Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006 (PAEA) is the only one of its kind for a government agency. On August 1st of this year, the Post Office will likely default for the first time in its history on its 2011 pension payment. If Congress does not act, it will also default on its 2012 payment due September 30th.

The requirement has drastically harmed the functions of the agency, which is used by almost every American. In July, USPS began closing offices around the country to meet the annual payment. By the time current downsizing plans are completed in 2014, Americans will see 229 processing plants closed and 28,000 jobs lost. In June, ten USPS employees launched a multi-day hunger strike to protest the cuts.

Without the pension payment, USPS would have a $1.5 billion surplus instead of a $20 billion shortfall. “[T]hese ongoing liquidity issues unnecessarily undermine confidence in the viability of the Postal Service among our customers,” said USPS spokesman David Partenheimer.

Postal Service cuts also threaten to increase economic inequality. A Reuters analysis released in February found that America’s poorest communities “stand to suffer most if the struggling agency moves ahead with plans to shutter thousands of post offices.”

A vast majority of postal offices under consideration for closure are located in rural areas, where poverty rates are higher than the national average. Nearly 90 percent of Americans without broadband access live in rural areas, making USPS cuts especially harmful to the pocketbooks of rural Americans.

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/07/19/546851/postal-service-default-congres/

[coyotes_geek]

Allowing the postal service to dump it's pension obligations on the taxpayers isn't the answer.

[boutons_deux]

If USPS goes bankrupt, taxpayers will get the tax-payer pension liabilities anyway.

the Repug poison pill is nothing but nasty politics to destroy govt and unionized employees, with nothing to replace it.

[coyotes_geek]

If congress will just allow the USPS to downsize to a level it can support through it's own revenues then the taxpayers don't have to get stuck with anything.

[mercos]

It really doesn't have much to do with letter prices anymore. Junk mail has been paying their way for a long time. It is the mandates by congress. The Postal Service has been able to stay in the black when the internet took the place of bill payments, letters, etc. It was when congress mandated this refunding of the retirement accounts that they started having a hard time.

That is what I've read as well. It is the retirement accounts that are killing the USPS. I would hate to see the USPS go, though. The USPS can be fixed, but it is most likely in need of some downsizing. The internet did take a good chunk of its business away. Some offices could be consolidated.

[Wild Cobra]

That is what I've read as well. It is the retirement accounts that are killing the USPS. I would hate to see the USPS go, though. The USPS can be fixed, but it is most likely in need of some downsizing. The internet did take a good chunk of its business away. Some offices could be consolidated.
The local news here has talked about such consolidation. The processing centers at Vancouver WA. and Hillsboro OR have already been consolidated into Portland OR. This has been and will continue to happen across the nation. The problem is, it causes more transportation costs, requires almost as many people, and only saves on building related costs. In the end, it saves little money if any.

[mercos]

Huh, good points. With fuel prices so high I'd imagine that would be a problem.

[boutons_deux]

As the article I posted shows, the biggest problem with the USPS is the Repug penalty of $5B/year off the top going to year 2075 pension requirements.

Judging by the amount of mail spam I get, USPS is still extremely important commercially to huge number of US business, large and small.

[coyotes_geek]

Apparently the USPS needs to eliminate pensions for all their employees. They clearly can't afford them.

[Wild Cobra]

Apparently the USPS needs to eliminate pensions for all their employees. They clearly can't afford them.
That's not it at all. This $5B annual is a requirement to prefund a system that wasn't required having a prefund before. The rate is probably 10x the annual amount needed to maintain the funding. The 2006 law refereed to requires the USPS to pay up front, all future pension obligation costs to cover something like 70 years into the future.

This is nothing but a way for congress to get more money to spend, and they will. It will then put the future tax payers on the hook for USPS employee retirement plans, since congress will have spent the retirement fund, that will only exist on paper.

[Harry Callahan]

If the internet negatively impacted the cash flows of the USPS, could it possibly be AlGore's fault that the entity is in trouble? Just sayin'....

[Harry Callahan]

The statist with the Frenchy posting name can produce leftist talking points at a mind blowing rate. Very impressive and sad at the same time.

[boutons_deux]

The statist with the Frenchy posting name can produce leftist talking points at a mind blowing rate. Very impressive and sad at the same time.

"Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk?"

cause I'm sure not feelin you have any intelligence. GFY

[Wild Cobra]

Apparently the USPS needs to eliminate pensions for all their employees. They clearly can't afford them.
I didn't read the new posts yet, but when I saw this thread pop up again, I did some searches. The law removed the escrow accounts the postal service had to seed the future retirement. This however, was just a theft by congress, since it will now go into the general fund to be spent. Congress took and spent the postal services escrow account.

[boutons_deux]

Saving the Post Office: Letter Carriers Consider Bringing Back Banking Services

On July 27, 2012, the National Association of Letter Carriers adopted a resolution at their national convention in Minneapolis to investigate the establishment of a postal banking system. The resolution noted that expanding postal services and developing new sources of revenue are important components of any effort to save the public post office and preserve living-wage jobs; that many countries have a long and successful history of postal banking, including Germany, France, Italy, Japan and the United States itself; and that postal banks could serve the nine million people who don't have a bank account and the 21 million who use usurious check cashers, giving low-income people access to a safe banking system. "A USPS [United States Postal Service] bank would offer a 'public option' for banking," concluded the resolution, "providing basic checking and savings - and no complex financial wheeling and dealing."

http://truth-out.org/news/item/10812-saving-the-post-office-letter-carriers-consider-bringing-back-banking-services

[Wild Cobra]

Good idea.

Become a bank, and ask for trillions in TARP!

[AussieFanKurt]

Is it potentially due to things like delivering too far rural and on weekends etc etc.

I mean I know it's a good service but no wonder they are dying, it would be bloody expensive to keep services like that running. I mean obviously people aren't using letters as much but stuff bought online has to be shipped somehow

[Clipper Nation]

I mean obviously people aren't using letters as much but stuff bought online has to be shipped somehow
...by UPS and FedEx...

[boutons_deux]

Junk mail seems to be extremely important to business.

[Th'Pusher]

...by UPS and FedEx...

I thought you respected the constitution. Article I Section 8 Clause 7. Check it out.

[Clipper Nation]

I thought you respected the constitution. Article I Section 8 Clause 7. Check it out.
It only says we have to have a postal service, not a bloated, inefficient one, tbh... additionally, if we really wanted to get rid of it, we could amend that clause out of the Constitution, tbh...

[Wild Cobra]

It only says we have to have a postal service, not a bloated, inefficient one, tbh... additionally, if we really wanted to get rid of it, we could amend that clause out of the Constitution, tbh...
There is actually nothing wrong with the postal service revenue except that congress thought they could get them to operate at $5.5 billion in the black each year, and take it.