{"id":7417,"date":"2012-03-19T15:06:39","date_gmt":"2012-03-19T22:06:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=7417"},"modified":"2012-03-19T15:06:39","modified_gmt":"2012-03-19T22:06:39","slug":"gop-going-postal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2012\/03\/19\/gop-going-postal\/","title":{"rendered":"GOP Going Postal"},"content":{"rendered":"

If Darryl Issa and the Republican Party have their way, the USPS will not survive.   They are doing and have done everything in their power to make that happen, so that companies like UPS and FedEx can take over the business.  If that happens, we all lose.<\/font><\/p>\n

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\"19usps\"<\/a>After a stopgap measure last year, Congress will once again debate whether the United States Postal Service as we know it can survive.  The better question is: Will Congress let it<\/strong>?<\/p>\n

The U.S. Postal Service is at risk<\/a> of defaulting on healthcare obligations or exceeding its debt limit by the end of the year. Last month, USPS management unveiled<\/a> a \u201cPath to Profitability\u201d that would eliminate over a hundred thousand jobs, end Saturday service and loosen overnight delivery guarantees. The Postal Service also proposes to shutter thousands of post offices.  \u201cUnder the existing laws, the overall financial situation for the Postal Service is poor,\u201d says CFO Joe Corbett.  Republicans have been more dire, and none more so than Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, who warned<\/a> of a \u201ccrisis that is bringing USPS to the brink of collapse.\u201d<\/p>\n

Listening to Issa, you\u2019d never know that the post office\u2019s immediate crisis is largely of Congress\u2019s own making.  Conservatives aren\u2019t wrong to say that the shift toward electronic mail \u2013 what USPS calls \u201ce-diversion\u201d \u2013 poses a challenge for the Postal Service\u2019s business model.  (The recent drop-off in mail is also a consequence of the recession-induced drop in advertising.)<\/p>\n

But even so, in the first quarter of this fiscal year, the post office would have made<\/a> an operational profit, if not for a 75-year healthcare \u201cpre-funding\u201d mandate that applies to no other public or private institution in the United States<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Warren Gunnels, aide to Sen. Bernie Sanders, calls that mandate \u201cthe poison pill that has hammered the Postal Service \u2026 over 80 percent of the Postal Service deficit since that was enacted was entirely due to the pre-funding requirement<\/strong>.\u201d<\/p>\n

This death hug was part of the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act, which was passed<\/a> on a voice vote by a lame duck Republican Congress in 2006<\/strong>.  As I\u2019ve reported<\/a>, the mandate required the Postal Service, over 10 years, to pre-fund healthcare benefits for the next 75.  This unique burden costs USPS $5.5 billion a year.<\/strong> The new law also restricted the Postal Service\u2019s ability to raise postage rates, or to provide \u201cnonpostal services\u201d that, in an e-diversion era, could be key to its future.  American Postal Workers Union president Cliff Guffey says the bill was designed \u201cby those people who hate government \u2026 to destroy the Postal Service.  And that\u2019s what they did.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Postal Service has long been required to provide \u201cuniversal service\u201d: delivering to all 151 million addresses in the United States<\/strong>. Conservatives promise [propaganda delinked] that private companies could serve the Postal Service\u2019s function more efficiently, but when it\u2019s their money on the line, the private companies themselves aren\u2019t always so sure. Some of the packages sent through UPS or FedEx are actually delivered by the Postal Service, because those companies save money by contracting<\/a> with USPS to serve more remote customers\u2026 [emphasis added<\/em>]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Inserted from <Alternet<\/a>><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve given you just enough of this article for a basic introduction to this issue.  I strongly advise you to click through to the source and read the rest.<\/font><\/p>\n

If USPS dies, we will all pay more for postal service, especially those who live in outlying areas.  What you need to understand is this.  The only reason that the USPS is in financial trouble is that it was sabotaged by the Republican Party.<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If Darryl Issa and the Republican Party have their way, the USPS will not survive.   They are doing and have done everything in their power to make that happen, so that companies like UPS and FedEx can take over the business.  If that happens, we all lose. After a stopgap measure last year, Congress will […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7417","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7417","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7417"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7417\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7417"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7417"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7417"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}