The Hill:
Postal workers say a congressional plan to fix the budget shortfalls at the United States Postal Service (USPS) is short sighted and have asked the White House to broker a better solution.
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Solution: TARP 4 - Federal Bailout of USPS. $2.2 Trillion boondoggle with $10 Million going to USPS and the left over trillions going to Acorn.
I love seeing my taxes go Up Up Up under this administration.
Thanks Barry
TARP ~~~ Bush II and S kank Paulson.
ACORN. MUSTARD. FLAG PINS. BARE ARMS. DIPLOMACY.
The biggest problem with the USPS is due to the run up in gasoline prices during '07 and '08. The post office, unlike UPS/FedEx, can not add a surcharge on deliveries. With prices running up to eye boggliing highs, it's no wonder that they in deep doo-doo. Their prices didn't increase until this year. Price adjustments in postal rates should be on a faster track just to allow for the sways in gasoline prices. It affects them as much as it affects us!
Merle from Michigan
The USPS has had budget problems since long before the gas prices of last year. Their problems may have been exacerbated by gas prices, but they weren't caused by them.
The PO has been privatized little by little for 10-15 years now. How many cronie's homes did the Post Master buy at top dollar to help them out during the housing busted bubble. How many million dollar homes to the taxpayers own that are really worth $200,000? Time to totally restructure...starting at the very top. Bushiesbegone!
DUH.......it's their DAMN job, how pathetic.
as a politically astute citizen, the REALITY of these comments is quite simple.
It's rep. VS. DEM,
"how pathetically sad, people don't use Common Sense to learn about real issues which affect them".
I think I'll go buy a bunch of forever stamps.
I totally agree that the government is best suited to administer our health care. Here is some fine examples of government efficiency.
Amtrak
FEMA
House of Representatives
Senate
Veterans Affairs
as opposed to the ba n g up job private healthcare givers are doing administering health care. How about the great job Wall street has done with Wall Street or GM administering GM.
my doctor is great....stop your whining unless you have a point....
See, this is why we need a libertarian administration. That would put an end to the waste and inefficiency.
congress: Government works, divided government does not. Americans are enamored with divided government. And we have paid the price with inaction. We get what we elect.
Amtrak: Go ahead; don't fund the rails. When the next oil shock hits and all planes are grounded because they cannot afford the fuel to get off the ground, just blame yourself while you are waiting in a three hour line to board a train to anywhere.
Fema: It seemed to be working fine until Boosh and co. screwed it up.
The gov't is administering a health plan. It is called Medicare and I believe most Seniors are pretty happy with it. My mother seemed to do just fine with gov't administered health care.
Army
Navy
Air Force
Marines
CIA
NSA
West Point
Annapolis
You can't fix a snails pace, it is a snail and it will always be one. The US postal system is an outdated antiquity that has for the most part been replaced by electronic media. Other carriers of packages and messages are doing a much better job at a lower price and have been doing so for years. The US postal system is a white elephant burdened with lavish pensions and benefits and long ago became a refuge for the incompetent and the shiftless. Were it not for government backing and protection it would have faded into obscurity long ago. Let it privatize and compete in the open market but for God sakes get it off the backs of the taxpayer. Their failure is only attributable to continued government support, they do not have to compete so they don't.
Other carriers of packages and messages are doing a much better job at a lower price and have been doing so for years.
1. Other carriers don't deliver to everyone every day. 2.Other carriers don't deliver the volume of mail the USPS does. 3. By the way, other carriers actually use the USPS to deliver some of their packages.
4. The volume of incompetent and shiftless is too large to all be accommodated by the USPS, so there are plenty to go around in the private sector like insurance companies banks and store clerks. Some even have time to make inane anti government comments on internet blogs.
I'll say. The US postal Service does have it's inefficiencies - like why can't they put my misplaced Hollywood video in the Hollywood video bin (next to the mailbox) instead of trucking it all the way downtown to find out it's a Hollywood video & mailing it back?
However, I work for a private corporation that claims to care about the bottom line, yet keeps people on that walk around the building all day. Most corporations are large enough to hide a lot of inefficiencies the way the government does. Managers hire incompetent friends, who hire other incompetent friends and so on. I've seen a ton of waste, but only a crisis will occasionally get rid of this.
Well stated, thank you.
1) Your first point is non sequitur. You're right, other carriers don't deliver to everyone, every day. But the same can be said for the USPS; the postman didn't deliver any mail today because I didn't have any. I haven't been visited by UPS since the last time someone delivered something. I really hope you see a pattern.
2 and 3) The USPS has a government created monopoly on the distribution of first class mail. They've actually tried to have other companies banned from delivering mail. Of course other companies are going to use the USPS because of their monopoly.
4) If people were incompetent in the private sector, they would be fired and wouldn't make any money.
You tell em! Also by the way, Corporations have made great use of the Postal Service to send out all that bulk junk mail that by law they get very good rates for. Do they really think they would get those from one of their own. I doubt it. Most of what the USPS has to deliver nowadays is Junk mail, or what they call third class. Without that service who would they get to deliver it?
You like ecards, I like handwritten cards sent. I don't save emails or texts but I have tons of special letters sent to me.
And lavish pensions and benefits? Wow, you just don't know much about the history of the letter carriers and what they had to fight for to get a decent salary. Go back to the 60's and look at the meager wages they were paid. Barely enough to keep families in food. Remember when they couldn't strike -- had no power at all?
A "refuse for the incompetent and the shiftless" - that so? Knew a carrier - 38 years - was first wave onto Iowa Jima. You?
You know what I have found about many of the people who gripe about the Postal service or Government workers in general, it's that they are envious. They wish that they had a job that had some benefits or paid them what they are worth, but they have been kicked around so much by private businesses that they accept it as their lot in life. Others are probably Republicans who just hate government as a rule of thumb. They don't mind that a few well heeled execs are getting paid much more than they are worth but they hate seeing average people doing well. I wonder why.
Bad management just like all the other corporations. Laws and regualtions let them do what ever they wanted to. Increase managament salaries and bonuses make terrible decisions. For example the time the gave fed ex 10 billion to carry post office parcels,(fedex brought out the kinkos with that money). The post office should have taken more serious there parcel business now fed ex and ups have all the business that used to be at the Post Office. Now the blame will be shifted to the employee just like the auto industry when employees have no say on how it was operated. Being a former employee I just hope my retirement does not vanish.
You talk like a Republican. For your information it is the fault of Republican Administrations that the Government isn't working properly because they hate regulation so much that every time they have had their shot at the Government they wreck it so that it won't work. Then they get kicked out because of what they have done to the government and leave it up to the Democrats to have to try to fix it which ends up costing money and then the Repubs say " Oh, See how much the Democrats spend on Government. Repubs would like nothing better than to whittle the Government down piece by piece and hand it out to their favorite Corporations so that they can all get rich.
So let me get this straight . . . Medicare is an unsustanable program that is going broke . . . Social Security is in trouble because they always spend the surpluses to try and make deficits look better . . . The Postal Service loses $6 billion in a single year . . .
This is why many have no faith in the Government touching health care.
Back when FDR started SS, he was very concerned that the plan would be underfunded. Well....it is. Now what?
You should not forget that Amtrak is belly up also. Our government could not find their way out of a paper bag. There is NO possibility they will be a better administer of health care than they are selling stamps.
Ok, what are we suppose to do? Forget health care? Let 46,000,000 who have no health care go to the devil? As for administering health care in this country, I don't see the insurance companies or HMO's doing very well? what's the solution?
And companies like Aetna that I have had dental insurance for the past 10 years are so efficient? It keeps forgetting that my daughter is under my plan and not my husband. Every time my dentist files a claim, Aetna claims that my daughter isn't on my plan. Then a few months later, they find her on my plan. And unfortunately, I cannot switch because my employer doesn't offer a different plan. How efficient is that? Fyi, insurance companies don't provide healthcare, except Kaiser which has a branch that does.
So what does that have to do with the Postal Service?
Do you think Aetna would survive if they lost $6 billion a year?
The Postal Service is a complete joke.
I was under kaiser for 6 months once. I was so glad when I changed jobs. I thought I would go crazy. On the 5th of each month I was notified by Kaiser that I hadn't paid my insurance. On the 10th, I was notified that I was past due in paying the insurance. (It wasn't due until the 25th). On the 15th, I was told that my insurance might be taken away from me because I was past due. On the 20th, I was told that my insurance had been cancelled because of nonpayment. On the 25th, I received a notice that I was past due. On the 30th I received a thank you for paying my bill. I finally complained and was told there was nothing I could do nor was there anything they could do because the computer was responsible. Three months after I changed jobs, I got a check from them for $500 saying that I had overpaid. I don't know what I overpaid? I kept the check, figured that I earned it by all the grief these people caused me each month. Don't mention HMO's to me!
This is a stupid idea. If we raid the health care benefit money set aside, when the time comes to pay out these funds, there won't be enough to cover the costs. See Social Security and Medicare! Lay off workers, make them take a one week per year furlow, whatever. Or raise stamps again. People who mail stuff these days do so for a reason. Even if it costs another nickel, who cares.
Why is it a bad idea?
When you have the Government bankrolling you, you have unliited funds.
Benjamin Franklin established the Postal System in this country and it was supposed to be "NOT FOR PROFIT". In the last fifteen years, your Congress and various Presidents decided it was time for it to become a "FOR PROFIT" entity, another one of those failed notions of running the Government like a business. This was not done to make the Postal System more efficient or even cheaper...it was done to make room to let FEDEX and UPS more profitable and to subsidize their "free market" activities so they could compete. FEDEX delivers mail for the USPS...which causes many of their carriers to have their 40 hours a week cut down to 26, so that the Pubies Business pals can make a little more money on the side with their non-union labor. This is just another starve the beast tactic by the Grover Norquists, Tom Delays, Bohners of the world. Your mail delivery was meant to be a "service" so we would not be at the whims of big business and their less than fair pricing methods. My son is a carrier for the US Postal system when he is not serving with his Guard unit in Iraq. Either way, he has been underpaid and overworked by the new "business model" that exists. Big Business got another opportunity to go on "the dole" with your tax dollars, and like pigs at the trough that is where they want to be. Just another example fo Corporate Welfare.
A big amen to that
Let's face it, there are a lot of know nothings out there who drink the usual Republican koolaid and or are just no know things in general. They would just as soon criticize those who work for the government without knowing what they are talking about.
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First Posted: 07-18-09 03:54 PM | Updated: 08-18-09 05:12 AM