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Bailing Out the Oil Industry But Not the U.S. Post Office
Trump loves to float trial balloons. Les deux du jour are letting the Post Office go under and firing Dr. Fauci. I realize he's not only bat shit crazy but as evil, if not worse than Hitler, but both of these seem akin to putting your privates on the 3rd Rail.
Perhaps if the USPS weren't forced to pre-fund 75 years of retiree health benefits their financial outlook would improve. Republicans have been wanting to privatize the function done by the USPS for about 15 years, and have found a benefactor in Trump, who thinks that folks like Amazon have too good of a deal with current negotiated rates.
@PressmUp That's right, if only we could treat every employee as terribly as the private sector does. I wonder how you would feel if a benefit promised to you before you worked your entire career at an organization was suddenly taken away from you after you already worked there and retired--a benefit that could keep you alive and prevent you from going bankrupt. You've got things backwards. Americans deserve the same health coverage benefits the Republican congressmen who are trying to take it away from postal workers have.
The issue isn't that they're trying to take healthcare from current workers (though some representatives would see that as a perverse side-benefit), they are trying to cripple the USPS by forcing a budgeting mandate which no other organization in the US is forced to do.
My classmate is a postal carrier. Maybe he's retired now, on the basis of his WIFE's salary. The PO used to have an actual retirement plan that was worth something. These people are civil servants--- or WERE..... So, he's been forced, like so many others, to fund his OWN retirement in a 401k. Impossible to do. The Repugnant Party is, well, REPUGNANT.
Wickipedia states that the USPS traces its roots to 1775 during the Second Continental Congress, when Benjamin Franklin was appointed the first postmaster general. The Post Office Department was created in 1792 with the passage of the Postal Service Act. It was elevated to a cabinet-level department in 1872, and was transformed by the Postal Reorganization Act of 1970 into the United States Postal Service as an independent agency.
The Cato Institute is a far-right / libertarian oriented organization, and has been primarily funded as a political mouthpiece for the Koch brothers. From The Cato Institute::
Article 1, Section 8 says that [The Congress shall have the power] to establish Post Offices and Post Roads. It does not say that the federal government shall have the exclusive power to deliver mail. Nor does it require that the mail be delivered by an agent of the federal government to every home in the country, six days a week.
In a 1996 Cato book, The Last Monopoly, James I. Campbell writes the following in a chapter on the history of postal monopoly law:
The U.S. Constitution, in 1789, authorized Congress to establish “Post Offices and post Roads” but, unlike the Articles of Confederation, did not explicitly establish an exclusive monopoly. The first substantive postal law, enacted in 1792, listed post roads to be established, reflecting the traditional concept of postal service as a long-distance transport. It authorized the Postmaster General to enter into contracts for the carriage of “letters, newspapers, and packets” but limited the postal monopoly to “letter or letters, packet or packets, other than newspapers.”
Canada has no mail on the week-ends. That doesn't feel so very bad. But I have learned that for Canada Post, the current delivery standard EVEN WITHIN THE SAME TOWN (sender to recipient) is now two days, rather than one. ...Then of course, everything in English has to be sent to Quebec, where it can be translated into French, then re-translated to English, then sent on to its destination. (Snark snark snark snark. Because Quebec insists on getting massaged, every time somebody blinks.) I'm trying to think of a word that might adequately describe a 2-day standard within the same city/town... Oh, yes, I have it: bullshit.
There is an inherent conflict between economically efficient service and universal service.
Once upon a time, the United States felt that it was important to provide universal access (at affordable rates) regardless of the additional cost. For example, beginning in 1934, phone companies (originally Ma Bell) have been paying into a Universal Service Fund to subsidize rural service.
"The Postal Service's [Universal Service Obligation] includes the requirement that 'the Postal Service shall provide a maximum degree of effective and regular postal services to rural areas, communities, and small towns where post offices are not self-sustaining'.” https://academic.oup.com/jcle/article/11/3/617/800096
American governments (local, state, federal) have been moving in the opposite direction for years. Look at some fire departments. You can prepay for them to be available to your individual home. Or not pay and have them watch your home burn.
So Trump wants the Postal Service to fend for itself and favor efficiency over universal service. Go for it. The Postal Service can cut back costly rural service to once a week. Or maybe just drop the mail off at various rural City Halls. Residents could then make use of all that subsidized gasoline to drive miles into town to get their mail or drop off a letter.
Maybe then, once business picks up again, the Postal Service can get back to twice or thrice daily deliveries in urban centers. While those tend to be Democratic strongholds, there's nothing political about it. It's just basic economics. Urban services are cheap to provide; rural post offices and last mile service are money losers.
Americans used to have a much different expectation of the Postal Service. In January 1950, you paid 3 cents to send a letter first class and 6 cents to mail it by air. You could expect the post office to correct a mistaken or incomplete address (a feature called directory service) to ensure an envelope was delivered properly and know that letters dropped in a postal collection box were picked up every day — including Sundays. And mail was delivered to your house twice a day. A Loop business might see its mail carrier three times a day. (Businesses enjoyed twice-daily delivery into the 1970s.)
In so MANY ways, The Orange Child Clown in the White House is utterly unqualified for his job; is a pathological liar, has the maturity of an 8-year old child, and is so self-absorbed that he thinks the sun shines out of his ass. He is a narcissistic BUFFOON. And evil. He is a danger to the entire universe. His existence is a bane to the world we inhabit. His existence is a threat to our safety and well-being. His life is a malignant lump.
Whelp, if we're telling it like it is, the only thing separating Trump from Hitler is body count. You give this creature another 4 + years and he'll make Hitler look like Jimmy Carter. Coronavirus additional deaths is peanuts compared to the environmental deaths and I could go day by f'nking day of his administration. So yeah, you can call me crazy if you wish.
I lived in a little ski-town in western NY. Everyone was REQUIRED to pick-up their mail at the Post Office. There were no letter carriers, no mail delivery. And I was told that the folks there VOTED to do it that way, somehow. They like the opportunity to go and mix there, with everyone else. I actually think that's a bunch of feces. Zip 14731.
When I was about 20 -21 the Coast Guard posted me to a Loran station at Point Arena, a small town on the northern California coast. The "post office" was a small section of the small general store. If you wanted mail, you went there and got it yourself. Even the Coast Guard.
We had Rural Free Delivery. Bunch of mailboxes at a crossroad. (This was in the days before exploding mailboxes and smashing pumpkins.) If you wanted stamps, you left a note in the box with exact change. When we finally got a post office, it was in the basement of a church.
Comments
+1 Lewis,
Trump loves to float trial balloons. Les deux du jour are letting the Post Office go under and firing Dr. Fauci. I realize he's not only bat shit crazy but as evil, if not worse than Hitler, but both of these seem akin to putting your privates on the 3rd Rail.
And so it goes
Peace and Flatten the Curve
Rono
Derf
https://ips-dc.org/how-congress-manufactured-a-postal-crisis-and-how-to-fix-it/
The Cato Institute is a far-right / libertarian oriented organization, and has been primarily funded as a political mouthpiece for the Koch brothers. From The Cato Institute::
Once upon a time, the United States felt that it was important to provide universal access (at affordable rates) regardless of the additional cost. For example, beginning in 1934, phone companies (originally Ma Bell) have been paying into a Universal Service Fund to subsidize rural service.
"The Postal Service's [Universal Service Obligation] includes the requirement that 'the Postal Service shall provide a maximum degree of effective and regular postal services to rural areas, communities, and small towns where post offices are not self-sustaining'.”
https://academic.oup.com/jcle/article/11/3/617/800096
American governments (local, state, federal) have been moving in the opposite direction for years. Look at some fire departments. You can prepay for them to be available to your individual home. Or not pay and have them watch your home burn.
So Trump wants the Postal Service to fend for itself and favor efficiency over universal service. Go for it. The Postal Service can cut back costly rural service to once a week. Or maybe just drop the mail off at various rural City Halls. Residents could then make use of all that subsidized gasoline to drive miles into town to get their mail or drop off a letter.
Maybe then, once business picks up again, the Postal Service can get back to twice or thrice daily deliveries in urban centers. While those tend to be Democratic strongholds, there's nothing political about it. It's just basic economics. Urban services are cheap to provide; rural post offices and last mile service are money losers. https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2013-02-08-ct-talk-mail-delivery-flashback-0208-20130208-story.html
Whelp, if we're telling it like it is, the only thing separating Trump from Hitler is body count. You give this creature another 4 + years and he'll make Hitler look like Jimmy Carter. Coronavirus additional deaths is peanuts compared to the environmental deaths and I could go day by f'nking day of his administration. So yeah, you can call me crazy if you wish.
The coronavirus is the personification of Trump.
And so it goes
Peace and Flatten the Curve
Rono
When we finally got a post office, it was in the basement of a church.