Does the GOP want to distroy the USPS?

[Shallah Kali]

Blocked from using excess funds to cover costs, USPS can only watch as default deadline approaches
Letter carrier union rep: We're 'pre-funding the grandkids of people who haven’t been born yet'
http://www.americanindependent.com/182628/blocked-from-using-excess-funds-to-cover-costs-usps-can-only-watch-as-default-deadline-approaches

By 2003, the Postal Service began lobbying Congress to do something to reform the system and reduce its pension obligation. Instead, in 2006, Congress passed the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act, which, among other things, required the Postal Service to fund 75 years’ worth of retiree health benefits over ten years. Of this singular requirement, the NALC’s Phil Dine says, “It’s pre-funding the grandkids of people who haven’t been born yet. No other organization, public or private, has to do anything like that.”

snip

That last detail is the sticking point in all this. Any change would require an act of Congress, a fact emphasized by unions, the Postal Service and the OPM alike. Unfortunately for the Postal Service, Congress is unlikely to act on this any time soon.

snip

As if to confirm this very notion, Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-Mass.) introduced a bill last month that would resolve this exact issue by transferring all surplus contributions into the USPS Retiree Health Benefit Fund. The American Postal Workers Union Thursday came out in support of the bill, and higher-ups at NLAC tell The American Independent that they’re happy with it as well, but it may not have the necessary support where it counts. The bill has just 35 co-sponsors in the House. It’s currently in the Republican-controlled House Oversight Committee, which has instead turned its attention to a new Postal Service labor contract that House Democrats, postal unions and USPS management have all called fair, but that committee Republicans have alleged is too labor-friendly and only underscores the value of private courier services like UPS and FedEx.

In a hearing last month, amid Republican claims that the contract is inflexible and promotes high labor costs, Rep. John Mica (R-Fla.) said, “The Postal Service has become a dinosaur that will soon be extinct <…> and that’s why I use FedEx and UPS.” In fact, one of the Postal Service’s fast-growing sectors is what it calls “last-mile service,” in which it delivers packages door-to-door on behalf of UPS and FedEx, which don’t provide universal service.

[ixion]

1. The goal is a Neo-Feudal Age

and we're well on the way.

[FiveGoodMen]

2. Yes it is

[Scuba]

3. The Post Office is established in the Constitution, and since...

...the Republicans want to get rid of the Constitution, that would be a "yes".

[Johonny]

5. need for the easy exchange of communication in the populace

apparently the founders thought such communication was so important for democracy they wrote it into constitution. Republicans do not want such exchanges thus why they don't like it seems easy to understand.

Today we would probably be more interested in the internet.

[Scuba]

13. Yours is exactly the point, and why we need to protect free speech....

...on every front. Clearly the internet is the "post office" of our founders.

[safeinOhio]

11. Article 1, Section 8

Congress shall have the power....."To establish Post offices and post roads"

[MineralMan]

4. They want to destroy everything. Scorched Earth is their

plan.

[SalviaBlue]

8. I agree.

They want to destroy everything.

[Enthusiast]

22. The very nation is under attack.

This is a far greater threat to the nation than any Islamic terrorism.

[BadGimp]

6. Do Bears Shit in The Woods?

Is The Pope Cathoolic?

Does The Donald employ a Combover?

Privitizing the USPS is part of the massive privitization effort but also part of the dumb down the masses effort.

Fucking GOP Asssholes!

[RegieRocker]

10. Lol

[Initech]

36. Short answer: Yes.

[rasputin1952]

7. Judging by the number of letters I get from the R's in my state...

you'd think they'd want the USPS to continue on...then again, they get franking privilege, so it's free for them.

This is one more reason why R's should never have a position of power, they hav no regard for the citizens of this nation Why people consistently;y vote against their own self interests bothers me intensely.

[Liberal_in_LA]

9. They want to destroy any union or governmental agency

[randr]

12. The government began postal service because

it was highly unprofitable, no one could do and provide everyone with equal access. They had an important national security issue to protect. The flow of information and document in a society is paramount. We now live in an age where it is obviously profitable as well as practical for private agencies to handle mail and packaging. I have a hard time justifying why we should still have the USPS.

[Hannah Bell]

15. because it's still unprofitable in precisely the same places & for the same people.

rural, the poor.

but enjoy your feudal fiefdom, i begin to cease to care that people are stupid fools.

[randr]

31. I quess my perspective is because I live at the end of the road

I do not think there are many places more remote than where I live, really. I have UPS and FedEx delivery every day. I also have excellent DSL connection provided by our local rural telecom. I receive and ship a lot of various size crates and packages with very little effort. My local USPS delivers to my box out in the road and the bulk of what I get from them is plan junk and a tremendous burden in terms of how much energy is wasted moving junk mail around the country. I can not ship with USPS as they cost more and do not pick up at my door.
I can imagine there are communities that lack the services I have, I just don't know where. I have never been told by UPS or FedEx that a package can't be delivered to a specific address.
If the USPS service is to continue I would hope they put and end to the abuse of their service by essentially spammers.

[Hannah Bell]

32. the usps delivers junk because the republicans set it up to deliver subsidized corporate advertising

when they took away the real business of the post office from usps & gave it to the same corps in the post office "reform".

when the post office is out of the way you will see how cheap your rural delivery becomes.

those who don't know history, etc.

[Urban Prairie]

28. Try thinking beyond the end of your nose

you obviously know very little about what the USPS does and the millions if not billions in costs that it incurs just to protect your privacy and your identity. No for-profit business would be willing to continue what would be very expensive to staff and maintain, since doing so would obviously be deeply cutting into their profit margins.

[Hannah Bell]

14. yes. and i for one will miss it, along with public libraries, public schools,

amtrak, social security, medicare, medicaid, & any semblance of a civil society.

sow the wind, reap the whirlwind you miserable fuckers.

[B Calm]

16. Nothing new here, they would like to destroy the child labor laws too.

[chillspike]

17. From wiki:

"the USPS has become self-sufficient and has not directly received taxpayer-dollars since the early 1980s with the minor exception of subsidies for costs associated with the disabled and overseas voters. However, it is currently borrowing money from the U.S. Treasury to pay its deficits.<3> The decline of mail volume, due to the increased usage of email, has forced the postal service to look to other sources of revenue while cutting costs to maintain this financial balance."

[Jakes Progress]

18. The first part of their campaign is to make up stuff.

They get out lies until they become "perceived truth". You can watch how effective it is even on DU. You will hear the propaganda lies voiced against teachers and schools here. If the PO becomes a topic, many here will trumpet the misinformation spread by the neocon network. The neocons are proof that a big lie told often enough becomes public "awareness".

[Countdown_3_2_1]

19. The internet has killed the USPS. Let it die.

Face it: The Pony Express was cool for a while, but it died. Railroads replaced it.

The USPS is an outmoded anachronism. Constitution or not, the internet is taking over bulk letter delivery, and private carriers are 100 times more efficient at package delivery than the Post Office.

Media has a life span. Newspapers and magazines are going out of business. No one buys them anymore.
Its the same with the post office. Its time has come. Let it die.

[Name removed]

23. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Bunny]

25. Bullshit.

Disgusting attitude. :thumbsdown:

[Urban Prairie]

27. So you are okay with "anyone" subcontracted by a private carrier

having unfettered access to your mail and your mailbox?

Are private carriers going to set up and fund their own criminal/fraud/theft investigation (ala the USPS Inspector General) departments that will detect, investigate and prosecute those involved in mail fraud and ID theft through the mails?

Would tampering with the mail, assaulting/robbing a mail carrier still be considered felony, since the mail would no longer be under the control of the extinct USPS?

Since the mail stream would be handled by perhaps many private, for-profit corporations and businesses, each with a leased or purchased territory or territories, after the USPS would be broken up, exactly what incentive(s) would each have to receive, sort, and transfer mail to and from competing carriers for further sortation, processing or delivery? A letter or flat mail from NYC to SF might have to be handled by a dozen different mail carriers, each with a territory to protect and earn revenue from, before reaching its destination.

[Hannah Bell]

34. when the competition & single rate provided by usps vanishes, i expect

there will be surcharges added to deliveries off main routes by the privatized carriers.

i'm getting to the point where i don't much care, since people so willingly accede to their own destruction.

[Exilednight]

30. Go tune back into Rush so you can find out what your next talking point should be. n/t

[Hannah Bell]

33. bullshit. nothing comes to you through internet tubes, it comes to you in trucks. *congress* killed

usps when they "reformed" it decades ago, turning it into a junk mail service & giving its business to private carriers.

this is merely the end game.

[Zorra]

20. I never use FedEx or UPS. I give the PO all my biz.

Privatizing means of communication would lead to RW thugs seizing control of the content and flow of information.

I don't want them to have the a ability to control the net or hard copy mail or anything else.

I love the little PO where I live, the people that work there are awesome.

[Enthusiast]

24. PLUS ONE...............nt

[Enthusiast]

21. And yet some postal workers

are foolish enough to vote for Republicans.

[Volaris]

26. haHAhahehah....idiot Republicans.....

the SAME Republicans who espouse a LITERAL reading of the Constitution at every turn

Article One, Section Eight, clause seven. Or is that one of the things they skipped when they read it aloud on the House Floor at the beginning of the year?

[Exilednight]

29. Companies like UPS and FedEx are fighting this battle every single day. They hate the fact that

the USPS, as they see it, is cutting into their profit margins.

[Overseas]

35. Yes. They prefer elite privatized services.

I really appreciate the USPS and want them to continue forever. They serve everyone.

But they have those unions that vote Democratic so the Republicans want to crush them.