Stop! The Poison-Pill that is Killing the Post Office...
By louisehartmann
The Post Office is screwed! The Republican plan to bankrupt the Post Office and it’s half a million unionized employees is working. Facing a fiscal crisis created solely by poison-pill legislation passed 5 years ago by a Republican Congress and signed by President Bush that required the Post Office – unlike any other company or government agency – to prefund 75 years worth of employee health benefits in a 10 year period – the Post Office is now moving forward with massive cuts in service.
Next-day mail delivery is the first to get the axe – but even more drastic cuts are coming down the pike, including closing nearly 4,000 local mail facilities and laying off as many as 100,000 postal workers. Meanwhile – Congress is doing nothing to repeal the poison pill legislation that’s threatening to kill off an institution was founded by Ben Franklin.
Call your lawmakers and tell them to help the post office and resist Republican efforts to completely privatize mail delivery in America.
Comments
#2
Money is speech.
Protesting is not speech.
Do I understand Scott Walker correctly?
#3
Thomas Jefferson explains his thoughts on banking and finance (Podcast)
PS Thomas Jefferson would suipport OWS!
#5
God Bless you Thom Hartmann!! Thank you for standing up to that greedy capitalist.
#6
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss "The Obama administration has affirmed, continued and expanded almost all of the draconian domestic civil liberties intrusions pioneered under the Bush administration. Here are twenty examples of serious assaults on the domestic rights to freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of association, the right to privacy, the right to a fair trial, freedom of religion, and freedom of conscience that have occurred since the Obama administration has assumed power. Consider these and then... http://www.activistpost.com/2011/12/20-examples-of-obama-administration.html
#7
After hearing the lovely comments from the guy from, I believe it was the Ameican Family?, I was surprised not to hear the obvious counterspin.
I volunteered, for a time, at a soup kitchen. it was mostly run by some religious based groups. I found them a bit odd, but they didn't make the poor sit through a sermon to get their food.
I did hear a sermon like speech from one the pastors that impressed me though.
He was commenting on the government and asked who is the govt in a democracy and said, "We are."
I find this the trick the right wing and libertarians use to fuel their propoganda. They make it seem that the govt is something other than us, as apposed to an extention of us.
It's not us deciding how we want our collective contributions spent, it's some foreign entity with a life of it's own.
When corrupted by money, it may seem that way, but I don't believe that was the intention of the founding fathers.
A Christian in a democracy is therefor a memebr of the govt and his decision to help the poor both personally and institutionally, should be equal morally.
All the property that is necessary to a Man, for the Conservation of the Individual and the Propagation of the Species, is his natural Right, which none can justly deprive him of: But all Property superfluous to such purposes is the Property of the Publick, who, by their Laws, have created it, and who may therefore by other laws dispose of it, whenever the Welfare of the Publick shall demand such Disposition. He that does not like civil Society on these Terms, let him retire and live among Savages. He can have no right to the benefits of Society, who will not pay his Club towards the Support of it.
Benjamin Franklin, letter to Robert Morris, December 25, 1783
#8
So what are we supposed to do? Redistribute our wealth to saoffices post offices? Let's raise taxes so we can fund an inefficient entity. That would be the liberal way to do it.
#9
How much was that 75-year advance to pay employee benefits? I have never heard.
#10
WHILE YOUR CALLING/CONTACTING YOUR CONGRESSMEN ASK about this as well:
"According to data released by the U.S. Energy Information Administration on Tuesday, the U.S. sent abroad 753.4 million barrels of everything from gasoline to jet fuel in the first nine months of this year, while it imported 689.4 million barrels."
Why the hell do we export our precious resources... because there are no US oil companies! EVERYTHING WE HOLD DEAR IS UP FOR SALE.
#11
"The Capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them." --V.I.Lenin
But it looks like the capitalists ended up hanging the Russians...all they had to do is so some presto-chango hocus pocus with some gold bonds, and other things, to outspend the Russians, and then try to cover it up later by electronically hijacking airliners and remote guiding them into the $480 billion bonds that were to come due on the very day after 911.
The other consequence is the subsequent trashing of not only US economy but also that of the world economy. In trying to spread the Chicago Style Capitalism by the Neo-liberals around the world (Chile, Russia,Greece, etc), Goldman Sachs style..they managed to trash the economies everywhere they went.
But "He who laughs last, laughs best"...even the angry hordes that descended upon the Roman Empire and their slaves eventually got the last laugh.
Of course, the banksters and Wall Streetsters are laughing now...but wait till this thing blossoms into a full scale revolution..guillotines, or hangman's nooses, or pitch forks and all by irate masses of citizens who know where all the culprits live and frequent. These twitsters will have no where to run...except maybe their penthouse sized fall out shelters!
#12
The only reason why the Post Office, or any other government run institution, would be "inefficient", as some right wingers claim, is because they are being subverted by right wingers. It also wouldn't be too hard to subvert them by bribery of top Postal Officials...just like in Russia...top officials and their family members benefited from a mad fire-sale of their infrastructure, urged on by the likes of Goldman Sachs, on how to convert from communism to capitalism.
All a top postal official would have to do is work to undermine and make the postal system seem to be inefficient and this would make more people empathetic to the right-wing position. The top postal officials may be thinking he/she would rather be making a CEOs salary, with bonuses, rather than the lowly government workers salary.
In Russia, it was a mad grab for control over previous government run organizations and businesses by those ruthless enough, or lucky enough, to be in the right place at the right time. It made a few people extremely wealthy and left the majority of the people very much worse off than they were under communism.
We have a government that is controlled by the ruling elite through revolving door bribery...government officials know that if they do the bidding of the ruling elite they will have a nice cushy and extremely well paying position when they leave government. And if they don't do the bidding of the ruling elite..and if they can't be threatened or blackmailed, they will likely be assassinated.
#13
Inefficiency often is a result of insufficient funding. If we made the wealthy pay back, say by increasing their taxes, some of that loot they stole from the American worker over the past 30 years by avoiding paying their fair share of taxes and by other corrupt means, we would not have the problems that result from insufficient funding.
#14
http://FreethoughtNation.com good web site. I have read several of Acharya's books and watched interviews and documentaries on this.
#15
All of the recent Postmaster Generals have went into high paying consultant jobs with companies directly related to the mailing industry. This along with outsourcing work for many years....."piece- meal privatization".....and the poison-pill legislation all add up to another fine example of crony capitalism. It's the same old grasping and avaricious 1%ers lining their own pockets....and as usual at the 99%ers expense.
In my opinion the Post Office is too big to fail, so let's socialize the losses and continue to refuse to let 1%ers privatize and profit at an increased expense and reduced service to the rest of us.
By the way, Article 1, section 8, paragraph 7 of The Constitution mentions creation of the Post office, nothing about Federal Express though!
Power to the People of Greece....fight on brothers and sisters!
#16
The U.S. Postal Service should thoughtfully consider how much money to put into pensions based on reasonable projections, and conclude that since the current conditions will cause it to cease to exist within the next 75 years, there is no need to put any money into pensions for that time.
I love technicalities.
#17
Here is the Email message that I sent to Senator Carl Levin, Senator Debbie Stabenow, and Representive John Dingell tonight, all from my home state of Michigan and the Downriver District:
Stop! The Poison-Pill that is Killing the Post Office...
In 2006 the House passed a bill with the approval of the Senate, and signed by President Bush requiring the Post Office to fully fund 75 years of benefits, unheard of in all of any industry. What are we doing to save our Postal Service?
Respectfully,
#18
Eliminate that stupid requirement and fold that money back into the operating budget.
#19
I was going to send a 1 pound package to the UK. UPS wanted $95, and my customer said she couldn't afford it. I checked USPS and they charge only $11.39. How is killing the post office going to help business? Thanks a lot Republicans.
#20
Oh, don't get me sttarted on this one... I want to get to bed some time tonight. Have been expounding about this on my E-mail and Facebook. We just got thru hammering away against the right wing overreaches in Ohio (and won btw). Am recently retired after fifty years with Uncle Sam (Military - including fifteen years in Asia), and the Post Office. Am a current member of an NALC (National Asociation of Letter Carriers) Branch (Postal Union) in San Antinio Texas. Thom, everything you said in the article is true. I think our union is nr 2 or 3 largest union in the U.S. and the right wing has been falling all over itself trying to privatize us, so that they can see off all the lucrative parts to the their rich entrepeneur friends... so whats new here - not much, except for magnitude of the arrogance and unreasonableness by the right wing. We would be showing a profit right now, except for the Bush administration's attempt to make us pay up SEVENTY FIVE years worth of future health care benefits within TEN years... this is so ridiculous that it would be laffable, except for the fact, that if it goes thru, I have been told that I will lose my Postal Pension. Well whoopty do do do - and how do you like that? Well, I (and many of my buds) will fight like hell (for real) if we should lose these pensions - this I promise. The thing that the right wing fears the most is the threat of themselves and their rich counterparts losing their ill begotton gains. They are used to pulling all their shenanigans, nearly all undercover of the public and getting away with them. Well that ain't happending anymore because as of late, everyone's true colors are being exposed. And given the overreach last winter of the right wing and the tea party and their inspiration the Koch brothers have attempt to purvey on the rest of us, many citizens in this country have finally awakened to new realities and are what could be described as hyper-vigilant right now. I certainly am. If you want to see a real pumped up "Occupy" movement, see what it looks like with thoudands of additional disgruntled postal employees, as well as the swath of reutrning Irag/Afghanistan veterans who can't find work. I don't have a lot to do anymore, and I am looking for a real nuts and bolts cause and Occupy" would fit right up my alley. I have to say one last thing... I understand why, at this point in time, the one percenters would vote for Republicans (in fact I am independent and voted for John McCain during the last election), but I sure as hell won't vote for any of the crop out there now - the only one that makes any sense and is due some respect is Ron Paul. Why do 40/50 % of the rest of the public vote Republican - just in case you don't know it is all about God, Gays and Guns for them, which ultimately hasn't got a damned thing to do with the state of the economy that we are in. We in the U.S.and Europe are quickly headed into become a low wage market for the newly emerging markets - Asia, especially China and India. Beware once that our long lost jobs start trickling back here, and they will, they will be the very low skill and low wage types. China and India have about a billion people and we have about 350 million people over here - so do the math. They are used to working for 2/3 bucks per day, and we are not, but barring drastic changes to our political/economic infrastructure, our people will be so deperate that they will appreciate these jobs, just to be employed. You had better wake up people cause the economic/political apocolypse is approaching, and if you think the multi-national corporations are going to take care of you, then think again. They serve loyalty to no barrier, border, country, culture, or anything, except profits for the investors... you know the poeple who don't work but make money off of your labor - think about it! Please reply - I am too old to insult!
#21
The reason why the Postal Service is in such deep difficulty is not being reported in the media. Even on liberal talk radio, I hear commentators saying the Postal Service's problem is that the internet has taken over from people communicating by mail and that it might be time to privatize postal service. I am outraged by this rhetoric since it is a Republican complaint and this lie has no business being reported by progressive commentators who apparently have not done their homework. The only place I have heard the truth re the Postal Service's "poison pill" laid upon them by the Bush administration and a Republican Congress is on this (Thom Hartman) radio talk show, Ed Schulz Show, and from Senator Bernie Sanders.
I place the blame for media block squarely on the shoulders of President Obama. While the Postal Service's problems were surfacing, Obama was doing his Jobs Tour and not once did he mention saving 120,000 jobs of the Postal Service not did he bring to the attention of the American public that their plight was due to a Bush administration legistation that the Service's health and pension fund had to be funded for all employees present and future for the next 75 years AND could only be paid out of postage stamp sales!!! Preposterous. I don't know why Obama hasn't been pressuring Congress to repeal that law.
Are you aware that the Postal Service carries 25% of UPS and FedEx deliveries? UPS and FedEx refuse to deliver to rural America BECAUSE THOSE ROUTES ARE NOT COST EFFECTIVE. So, they deliver to the post office and the Postal Service makes the deliveries. I live in a rural area but do get UPS and FedEx deliveries; however, DHL and Airborne Express delivers to my post office where I have to go to retrieve my packages.
#22
Link to payment schedule
Hi Louise/Thom,
I decided to look up the bill passed in 2006 and was able to find the payment schedule that was passed and signed by President GW Bush which is bankrupting the USPS. Here's the link to the schedule:
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=h109-6407&version=enr&nid=t0%3Aenr%3A931
It's roughly $5.5 trillion per year for 10 years.
Thanks for being the voice of reason.
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60 Minutes: Fraud Caused Financial Meltdown, But There Have Been No ProsecutionsPosted on December 5, 2011 by WashingtonsBlog
As we’ve repeatedly demonstrated, fraud caused the 1930s Depression and the current financial crisis, and there’s no recovery because the government made it official policy not to prosecute fraud (and seethis, this, this, and this).
60 Minutes has just produced a hard-hitting 14 minutes segment on the widespread fraud leading up to the financial crisis, and the utter lack of prosecutions to date.