The UNION is the reason they want to tear it down more than anything. Three unions, NALC, APWU and NPMHU all permeate the agency of more than 500,000 employees.

All of the media hype about the Post office being in trouble is manufactured...Boosh created the trouble. He used postal funds to pay for Iraq which should be illegal.

The Post Office, if left alone is completely self supporting, solvent and does not depend on any tax dollars from the gov't. The gov't. is taking money from the Postal Service to make it fail.

That is half the reason they won't get rid of it, less revenue for the government and a larger deficit.

I also think there is another intermediate reason the reactionaries and Repuglicans want to diminish the U.S. Postal Service.

More and more localities and states have moved to mail ballots to reduce costs and, frankly, it improves the efficiency and availability of voting.

Reducing pick-up and delivery, increasing the cost of postage, making the service more unreliable, etc., will all have the effect of making voting more difficult for marginal voters, groups that tend to vote Democratic and/or progressive.

Furthermore, mail ballots provide a paper trail ... something internet voting -- if it ever comes -- will probably not be able to do (and obviously computer voting will mean those with computers and web access will be advantaged).

I want to see Pres. Obama and the Democrats in Congress make a full-throated defense of the Post Office.

Once the Post Office is gone or severely diminished, we'll see just how important this "old technology" actually was ... we lose it at our own peril.

while that voting stuff may be true... i think the real motive is much simpler.. the Republican party of today, never saw a government enterprise that they didn't want to privatize.. its sort of a holy grail to them..

likewise the post office is unionized.. the conservative mantra, bust the unions and privatize, much like the have done with the prison system, and are in the process of doing to the schools.. the real truth of the matter is that, even with computers the postal service still is the least expensive and most dependable way to ship in many instances..

the right wingers would love to shift that revenue stream into private hands, with non union labor

I can just see a privatization deal coming WITH the pre-funded health plan which the buyers will BAIN-ize, sucking out the cash to pay executive bonuses

Abolish the bullshit 2006 law and you "fix" the USPS.

This entire war is about one thing, bringing the largest union in the US to an end.

business doesn't have the same fiduciary responsibility as government.

One thing is for certain, paying out the additional 5.5 billion every year doesn't help their profit margin.

I believe there are critical services that government aka; "We the people" should have dominant if not sole domain over, no doubt there are some people that disagree believing that profit should rule all.

For example, there was no pension pre-funding from 06/2011 - 11/2011 and the USPS still lost 100's of millions of dollars during that time period.

I agree with your other points.

At least in the calendar I still use.

Gas prices.
What were the differences in prices in 2006 compared to say 2011 also those same gas price increases caused everything to go up in price so what were the differences in prices that the USPS had to pay for things like maintenance on their vehicles as well as repairs to varies facilities and other basic things like office supplies?
If most of those went up after 2006 then ya its gonna cost them more money to keep running.
Anyway I disagree with the OP in that I do believe the Internet has had a negative impact on the USPS however I dont think the answer as some have advocated of taxing emails is a workable solution at all for a number of reasons both privacy related and because it imo would be impossible to enforce especially because there are 3rd party overseas web based mail services.
Solution? To be honest its a tough call, they could raise prices but they can only raise them so much before they start to cut their own throats and people move to other services like fedex, ups, dhl. They could also switch it entirely to just doing letters and farm out the transportation and delivery of packages to the other delivery companies though that would depend of course on if they are losing money or making money in that area.

already farm out their delivery service to the USPS. Most of my packages sent UPS come to me via the USPS. (If they're big, they get left at the Post Office). Without the USPS and the "last mile" delivery scam, FedEx and UPS would lose money in rural areas.

Somehow downtown Philly and dwn town San Diego are last mile too.

No, not kidding.

I wasn't aware of this, do you have a link?

Pensions are not and never were the cause of the Postal Service's financial predicament. Downthread you cite a Politico article on USPS suspending pension payments. You omitted mentioning the reason for that suspension- a large existing surplus in those accounts. From the article:

"The USPS announced Wednesday that it has informed the federal Office of Personnel Management Wednesday that it will stop contributing its share — $115 million every other week for its nearly 563,000 employees – to the Federal Employees Retirement System. The service estimated it will save about $800 million for the current fiscal year that ends Sept. 30.

The service said it currently has a $6.9 billion surplus in its federal retirement system account."

This is an accounting issue between USPS and various other agencies and Congress.

Unlike most pensions, postal pensions are fully funded (and probably over-funded- the issue being by how much). But the pensions are not supposed to be pre-funded. The pre-funding mandate refers to the pre-funding of healthcare benefits established by the 2006 Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act.

And yet its contribution to our overall quality of life is priceless.

Driving home this afternoon, I heard Thom on the radio explaining that in the two years prior to 2006, the USPS was so profitable that their biggest challenge was figuring out what to do with the money. He said they'd made plans to use it to convert most of their delivery fleet to electric vehicles. An investment like that might have paid off well in fuel savings over time.

It shouldn't strain anyone's credulity that a mandate to fund employee health benefits seventy-five years in advance would crush the profitability out of any organization or business. Imagine the impact such a legal requirement would have on a large employer like IBM or GE.

This bill was passed during a lame duck session

Of course truths actually matter very little for the faux news rw bubble crowd. They only know whatever "truths" they're told by the rw talking heads. In this case, the p.o. is having $$ trouble because of overpaid, lazy federal workers who unfairly make more $$ than you.

Also, i never realized that Rockefeller looked like Dale Earnhardt. :3

except the politicians should be a little smaller.

when he says "Shrink government down to the size that it can be drowned in a bathtub," in effect he's saying to drown "We the People."

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Norquist's pledge scam has resulted in undermining the financial resources needed to properly fund the activities of our government, leading to financial instability. In particular, defunding education is directly targeting our future innovation and our prosperity which depends on innovation and scientific advances. Maybe Norquist isn't an enemy agent, but the policies he has gotten Republicans to pledge allegiance to are having the same impact as if he is.

always a pleasure to see you here

Thank you Uncle Joe.

The lies about the Post Office remind me of the oft-repeated lies about the so-called benefits of the XL pipeline. (There are no long-term benefits. At least not for the U.S. or the planet.)

The echo chamber is just too powerful. People just keep repeating the same talking points over and over without ever questioning their foundation.

And that's just the way that Grover Norquist and his gang of marauding privatizers like it.

I love the post office and agree special interests have gone that extra mile to turn over the post office to private interests. Slowly but surely, everything in this Country seems for sale now. Verizon even discontinued the WE 61212 and the TI 42525 (weather and time) telephone services which I and thousands of others have accessed for years to quickly learn the weather and time for our areas. The information of course is available on the cable version of the weather station, but only after one wades through the forecasts for surrounding areas. It takes so much longer and of course, with the cable bill, one pays for the information. This was such a small thing to provide these two services, it is unbelievable to me the services after decades would be suspended. And of course, for those living in rural areas who cannot afford cable, what do they do now?

It is time for everyone to take a stand against these takeovers. The economic hit men are now among US, and we need to stop them.

Sam

contemplated, meditated, or self-medicated over this thread.

Peace to y'all and have a good weekend.

Thank you for the thread UncleJoe.

Private corporations are the only ones that stand to gain from the loss of the USPS. The public stands to lose. There is absolutely no way the Private companies will provide the same service for less, compared to the USPS.

K&R

I love my little Post Office. The folks who work there are so friendly, helpful and awesome.

At some point we're probably going to have to figure out how to save the PO from privatization by the 1%.

... anything about this?

The war in Iraq was the big one. Also, there wasn't enough votes in the Senate to overcome a certain Republican filibuster of a bill to formally repeal the law.

If the Democrats had actually forced the Republicans to filibuster the bill, they would've at least gotten them on record as being on the dole of special business interests.

with all the naysayers who want the post office to fail. I really wish that the Dems would counter this and all other lies more vocally and get the truth out to the masses.

Thanks for the post.

corporate media. Has this privatization/ prefunding retirement angle been mentioned at all? I heard a report from a kind of funky, semi-liberal commentator on a local radio station today and he was just presenting as fact that the post office is in debt because of mismanagement on its part, and no mention about these other issues.

All internet activity private without a warrant.

T-mobile was on the chopping block for a mere 20b.

Every single news story I've heard about it begins and ends with the assertion that online bill payment is responsible for the decline in postal revenues.

Surely you're not suggesting that the media have it wrong?!?

advertising matter (bulk mail) accounts for a huge portion of the Postal Service's remaining revenue. If the Postal Service were to fail, those advertising dollars would go someplace else...

Hmm...

I feel like an idiot! I had no clue about this 2006 prefunding mandate. My stars what did Congress(?) think was going to happen? Why do I feel like crying?

but mostly write checks, lick a stamp and stick them in the mail. I especially enjoy sending checks to companies who print on their return envelopes: "Make this your last stamp - pay online!" Phooey! Who doesn't like to get a good old-fashioned letter or birthday card in the mail? Also make it a point to say a kind word to my wonderful letter carriers.

But direct deposit is good.

Great thread - K&R

This was a calculation made to destroy the post office. The worst part about it is the selling of the lie that the post office should somehow make a profit or be revenue neutral - this just helps to sell that lie. It's a fucking public service!! We don't expect for roads to make money.

profit should be made, what part of the OP does that?

I would also direct you to my post #12.

I didn't mean to address your OP, but the change to their accounting as something to sell the idea that profit should be involved. We're certainly in agreement about all of this.

would be impacted the most, are overwhelmingly Republican.

Maybe the media will hear and report!