Senators: Stop Cuts to Postal Service

Living in a very remote area we get a lot of our packages shipped priority mail Flat rate to our PO box, UPS and FED EX hit us with 2 nd day air prices (ouch!) and take a week to ten days to deliver. When I hear of the they want cut back on the post office I think why fix something that works? and works well to boot!

U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) yesterday proposed legislation to impose a two-year moratorium on U.S. Postal Service plans to eliminate up to 15,000 decent-paying jobs, close more mail-sorting plants and end overnight delivery of first-class mail and periodicals. “At a time when Postal Service revenue is increasing, it makes no sense to eliminate thousands of jobs and slow down the mail service that millions of Americans rely on,” Sanders said. “We should be working to strengthen the Postal Service,” he added, “not send it into a death spiral.”

In fact, from 2003 through 2006 the Postal Service made a combined profit of more than $9 billion. Increasing revenue would have resulted in nearly $1 billion in profits over the past two years except for an unprecedented requirement that the Postal Service sink billions of dollars into an already-flush fund for future retiree health benefits. The requirement was slipped into law at the request of President George W. Bush during a lame-duck session of Congress. “This onerous and unprecedented burden that costs $5.5 billion a year is responsible for all of the financial losses posted by the Postal Service since October 2012,” Sanders said.

source

originally posted by: AlaskanDad
Living in a very remote area we get a lot of our packages shipped priority mail Flat rate to our PO box, UPS and FED EX hit us with 2 nd day air prices (ouch!) and take a week to ten days to deliver. When I hear of the they want cut back on the post office I think why fix something that works? and works well to boot!

U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) yesterday proposed legislation to impose a two-year moratorium on U.S. Postal Service plans to eliminate up to 15,000 decent-paying jobs, close more mail-sorting plants and end overnight delivery of first-class mail and periodicals. “At a time when Postal Service revenue is increasing, it makes no sense to eliminate thousands of jobs and slow down the mail service that millions of Americans rely on,” Sanders said. “We should be working to strengthen the Postal Service,” he added, “not send it into a death spiral.”

In fact, from 2003 through 2006 the Postal Service made a combined profit of more than $9 billion. Increasing revenue would have resulted in nearly $1 billion in profits over the past two years except for an unprecedented requirement that the Postal Service sink billions of dollars into an already-flush fund for future retiree health benefits. The requirement was slipped into law at the request of President George W. Bush during a lame-duck session of Congress. “This onerous and unprecedented burden that costs $5.5 billion a year is responsible for all of the financial losses posted by the Postal Service since October 2012,” Sanders said.

source

Who said our government did things that make sense?

Just like digitizing and putting all of our medical information available on the internet, where any hacker can get to it. The Postal Service is a government agency, I suppose it's back to the Pony Express for you.

The USPS is one of the prime examples of an "essential service". This being so, it is necessary to fund it sufficiently to provide the needed service to all citizens. Two-way access to the world (and around the corner) is absolutely a basic need of and in a free society.

Give them the bucks.

I really don't understand why they are gov't. required to 100% pre-fund their retirement plans (I think) 75 years in advance. It seems like an effort to ruin the postal system, was their a reason for this requirement?

Heaven forbid somebody has to fund their pension plan. The crap is going to hit the fan soon for bunches of cities and teachers pension plans that are not funded. This one is just hitting the fan first. Do we bail out the city and state pensions? Get ready to answer that one real soon.
As for the post office.
The 2006 senate passed the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act by a unanimous vote. That senate had our current president and our next possible president Hillary. John Kerry to...The bill was presented by a republican and two democrats and signed by g.w. Bush.

So why do people want bipartisan politics?

a reply to: Hoosierdaddy71

I thought some facts might help:

The USPS economic crisis is the result of a provision of the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006 that requires the Postal Service to pre-fund the health care benefits of future retirees—a burden no other government agency or private company bears.

The legislation requires the USPS to fund a 75-year liability over a 10-year period, and that requirement costs the USPS more than $5.5 billion per year. Guffey also pointed out that “the federal government is holding billions of dollars in postal overpayments to its pension accounts.”

source

I am more and more in favor of a Constitutional amendment removing the government requirement to have a post office.

a reply to: Xcathdra

Where as I'd like the government to let them run themselves to the best of their ability without placing artificial restraints on them (Congressional mandated pension funding, not allowed to lower prices to be competitive, etc...)

a reply to: Elton

Congress is doing their job, whether we agree with that one or not. I really do think we should revisit the viability of the post office in an electronic age and start to make changes to bring them into the 21st century.

For all intents and purposes a government (at least in the US) is really not designed to run as if it were a business. They are not suppose to be making profits. Hence the argument about balanced budgets during Clintons era and the argument we see today.

Wishful thinking on my part? most likely.

originally posted by: AlaskanDad
When I hear of the they want cut back on the post office I think why fix something that works? and works well to boot!

Are you kidding about working well?

This was back in 2011...
www.pbs.org...

Under point 1 it says revenue has been declining for years and even without the healthcare prepayment the situation will be getting impossible to sustain in the future.
Point 3 is that Junk Mail sustains the system. The post office has become an ad system, not a 'post' system. Mail delivery doesn't NOT pay enough for it to survive.
Point 5 shows that other postal systems around the world have evolved into sustainable businesses. Did you know the Canadian postal system has generated profits for many years now and only recently slipped under making a profit?

A little more recent...
www.washingtonpost.com...

Clearly states that despite the current operational 'positive' cash flow that the US Postal Service is still $40 BILLION is debt. Is that your definition of 'working well'??? If it didn't have the government supporting all that debt the service would have gone bankrupt many years ago.

The truth is that the US postal system is about the biggest dinosaur postal system in the world. It still relies on lettermail for it's major profits, which is declining year after year. It has yet to take any serious reforms and join the other postal systems in the world in the 21st century.

originally posted by: noeltrotsky

originally posted by: AlaskanDad
When I hear of the they want cut back on the post office I think why fix something that works? and works well to boot!

Are you kidding about working well?

This was back in 2011...
www.pbs.org...

Under point 1 it says revenue has been declining for years and even without the healthcare prepayment the situation will be getting impossible to sustain in the future.
Point 3 is that Junk Mail sustains the system. The post office has become an ad system, not a 'post' system. Mail delivery doesn't NOT pay enough for it to survive.
Point 5 shows that other postal systems around the world have evolved into sustainable businesses. Did you know the Canadian postal system has generated profits for many years now and only recently slipped under making a profit?

A little more recent...
www.washingtonpost.com...

Clearly states that despite the current operational 'positive' cash flow that the US Postal Service is still $40 BILLION is debt. Is that your definition of 'working well'??? If it didn't have the government supporting all that debt the service would have gone bankrupt many years ago.

The truth is that the US postal system is about the biggest dinosaur postal system in the world. It still relies on lettermail for it's major profits, which is declining year after year. It has yet to take any serious reforms and join the other postal systems in the world in the 21st century.

Good idea.

Now let us know what happens when TPTB take away the electricity. No electricity means no internet, no internet means no digital transfers of information, no digital transfers of information means that you are without communication.

Are you that reliant that you don't see your reliance on a very tenuous allowance of electricity?

originally posted by: WarminIndy


Now let us know what happens when TPTB take away the electricity. No electricity means no internet, no internet means no digital transfers of information, no digital transfers of information means that you are without communication.

Are you that reliant that you don't see your reliance on a very tenuous allowance of electricity?

There are over 300 million citizens in the US and millions more foreigners. We have mail coming in from all over the globe.

Do you honestly think all those parcels are hand sorted? If the electricity goes out the Post Office wont be operating since the bulk of their operations rely on computers, automated systems for sorting and scanning, keeping track of priority mail and packages...

The post office would be in the dark with the rest of the people.

absent a constitutional amendment we are stuck with them. We need to bring them up to date, which will require.. wait for it... electronics / technology.

originally posted by: Elton
I really don't understand why they are gov't. required to 100% pre-fund their retirement plans (I think) 75 years in advance. It seems like an effort to ruin the postal system, was their a reason for this requirement?

Actually, you've quite accurately answered you own question within your own post.

It was absolutely done in an effort to destroy the postal system!!

a reply to: Flatfish

Any job, any service, any business, that does not serve the wealthy benefactors, is in jeopardy. Can you not see which way the US is going financially.

"“Quite frankly, a lot of us thought that by buying politicians, rewriting tax laws, and hiding money overseas, we were getting it done,” said Dorrinson, who owns the hedge fund Garrote Capital. “If, at the end of the day, all we control is a measly half of the world’s wealth, clearly we need to do more—much more.”

In Davos, Dorrinson is huddling with other billionaires in the hopes of setting an ambitious goal for the top one per cent: to own the other half of the world’s wealth by 2025."

a reply to: Xcathdra

Maybe UPS and FED EX should be required to pre-fund their retirements 75 yrs to the future, the hedge fundies would love that!

Edit is below:

Here is something on the USPS current profits:

“At a time when Postal Service revenue is increasing, it makes no sense to eliminate thousands of jobs and slow down the mail service that millions of Americans rely on,” Sanders said. “We should be working to strengthen the Postal Service,” he added, “not send it into a death spiral.”

And here is a quote from one of your links:

1. The USPS is not technically “broke” — yet.
Operationally speaking, the USPS nets profits every year. The financial problem it faces now comes from a 2006 Congressional mandate that requires the agency to “pre-pay” into a fund that covers health care costs for future retired employees. Under the mandate, the USPS is required to make an annual $5.5 billion payment over ten years, through 2016. These “prepayments” are largely responsible for the USPS’s financial losses over the past four years and the threat of shutdown that looms ahead – take the retirement fund out of the equation, and the postal service would have actually netted $1 billion in profits over this period.

a reply to: AlaskanDad

Sounds like the "problem" stops in 2016.

Who is funding the losses right now?

originally posted by: AlaskanDad
Maybe UPS and FED EX should be required to pre-fund their retirements 75 yrs to the future, the hedge fundies would love that!

BTW, why does it surprise you that the government require the post office to fully fund it's massive pension and healthcare benefits package? The 'company' is already $40 BILLION dollars in debt. If I was the creditor I would have fired the incompetent management, shut it down and sold the remnants to private businesses to do the job better many, many years ago.

Of course the government doesn't trust Postal Service management. They have run it into the ground and dug a massive hole. I wouldn't trust them with my lunch money let alone pensions and healthcare obligations for thousands and thousands of workers.

a reply to: noeltrotsky

Hmmm; maybe if they shutdown USPS. we will have more people going postal on the streets which can be labeled terrorists. Hence we would need more money to fight terrorism and more rights can be taken from the citizens of the good ole US of A!

originally posted by: Xcathdra

originally posted by: WarminIndy


Now let us know what happens when TPTB take away the electricity. No electricity means no internet, no internet means no digital transfers of information, no digital transfers of information means that you are without communication.

Are you that reliant that you don't see your reliance on a very tenuous allowance of electricity?

There are over 300 million citizens in the US and millions more foreigners. We have mail coming in from all over the globe.

Do you honestly think all those parcels are hand sorted? If the electricity goes out the Post Office wont be operating since the bulk of their operations rely on computers, automated systems for sorting and scanning, keeping track of priority mail and packages...

The post office would be in the dark with the rest of the people.

absent a constitutional amendment we are stuck with them. We need to bring them up to date, which will require.. wait for it... electronics / technology.

Yes, see the point?

Back to the Pony Express.

originally posted by: AlaskanDad
a reply to: noeltrotsky

Hmmm; maybe if they shutdown USPS. we will have more people going postal on the streets which can be labeled terrorists. Hence we would need more money to fight terrorism and more rights can be taken from the citizens of the good ole US of A!

They passed the Paper Reduction Act, see how well that turned out?

But think about it, most postal workers are skilled at a particular level above McDonald's so if they all lose their jobs, that will leave a whole lot of people competing more, and those who are higher skilled will toss out those lesser skilled, and if we have millions of low skilled people with absolutely no job prospects, then mass panic ensues because those who are skilled and working in fast food will not be able to keep paying taxes to support that class of lower skilled.

Social engineering, that is what this is about.