After I was shot I spent several months in crowded military hospitals with other young Americans who'd been wounded fighting for our country and, like so many others, I was eventually designated a disabled veteran.
After my medical retirement the VA stepped in, sent me to college and law school and, since I began to practice law in 1973, my family and I have lived a good life (and--special bonus!--the taxes I've paid have refunded America's investment in my education over and over).
As a disabled veteran I've received various prescription meds--by mail--every month. Now, for the first time in almost five decades, I face the prospect of delivery of those meds being delayed because the psychotic-in-chief finds it politically expedient to screw up the US Postal Service.
Please note that, as a personal matter, and on behalf of all of my fellow disabled veterans who are equally dependent on receiving their meds by mail, there is nothing short of death that can stop me from voting for Biden-Harris on election day. NOTHING."
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In an interview on Fox Business Network, Trump explicitly noted two funding provisions that Democrats are seeking in a relief package that has stalled on Capitol Hill. Without the additional money, he said, the Postal Service won’t have the resources to handle a flood of ballots from voters who are seeking to avoid polling places during the coronavirus pandemic.
“If we don’t make a deal, that means they don’t get the money,” Trump told host Maria Bartiromo on Thursday. “That means they can’t have universal mail-in voting; they just can’t have it.”
Trump’s statements, including the false claim that Democrats are seeking universal mail-in voting, come as he is searching for a strategy to gain an advantage in his November matchup against Joe Biden. He’s pairing the tough Postal Service stance in congressional negotiations with an increasingly robust mail-in-voting legal fight in states that could decide the election.
11 comments:
There were moves in the past to privatize the post office but congress could not agree. There were moves to allow competition but congress wouldn't allow it. There were moves to eliminate Saturday delivery but the union opposed it. The post office is a mess by their own making. They offer junk mail service at a loss, they fund their pensions in advance, they have no incentive to provide any service and the public is suppose to just go along and pay for it.
The post office deficit is much like the poorly run states. Maybe they should look internally instead of making all taxpayers pay for their poor management. Privatize and make it competitive.
skud, you need to educate yourself on the problems facing the US Post Office. What you wrote is simple-minded and not accurate at all.
Take the time to read up on it. The truth will set you free.
Since I'm busy now actually looking for a job, I'll only address one of Skud's "complaints" against the USPO--"they fund their pensions in advance". Gosh, I wonder why they do that??
According to the Institute for Policy Studies: "In 2006, Congress passed a law that imposed extraordinary costs on the U.S. Postal Service. The Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act (PAEA) required the USPS to create a $72 billion fund to pay for the cost of its post-retirement health care costs, 75 years into the future. This burden applies to no other federal agency or private corporation.
If the costs of this retiree health care mandate were removed from the USPS financial statements, the Post Office would have reported operating profits in each of the last six years. This extraordinary mandate created a financial “crisis” that has been used to justify harmful service cuts and even calls for postal privatization. Additional cuts in service and privatization would be devastating for millions of postal workers and customers."
Possumlady
All you have to know to understand what's happening is this...
"You can't prove there is not voter fraud. That's the very definition of voter fraud."
That's from the Admin Chief of Staff Mark Meadows.
If the Trumpistas and Administration are living in place where we have to disprove negatives, we're lost.
Not a single Secretary of State, Democrat or Republican has said their elections have been tainted by voter fraud. Not one! And yet, since someone asserts there may be fraud, in the future, we have to prove it won't exist?
Pure idiocy...
Possum...
Postal workers, in the views of many conservatives, are part of the problem. There is a lot of jealousy from private sector workers towards government workers at all levels. They resent the salaries those folks get AND the fact that government workers get a retirement acct.
Rather than pressure private companies to increase wages, they've thrown their lot in with people who would rather lower high wages and eliminate defined pension plans.
Ms Shaw, Your response was a little trite since you normally do a better job of researching your response. The USPS is a good example of the government trying to provide a service and break even. The USPS is over staffed and their you cannot be fired policy makes it difficult to inspire workers to do their jobs. If you get good service from your post office either it is the exception or you need to raise your standards.
PL, Isn't it amazing how our inept corrupt elected elite have a habit of doing something without consideration to unintended consequences. With the popularity of paperless bills and payments the revenue stream for the post off declines every year because fewer pieces are mailed. This has been the case since the recession of 2008 when corporations started moving to paperless for the majority of their correspondence. The post office has always been a great source of patronage jobs from carrier to postmaster general and the APWU protection has made it very difficult to reform.
Do we really need daily delivery of our mail especially rural. Do we really need Saturday delivery and does the USPS need to spend money on advertising to make their workers feel better. It needs to be run like a business and therefore privatized.
Good luck with your job search..
There are many reasons the USPS should be a non profit organization. They should be expected to break even and the huge burden placed on the USPS requiring full funding of retiremenr accounts 75 years into the future is a bit nonsensical if you ask me. That as well as it being near impossible to fire a sub performing postal worker. I've personally known individuals in management at the USPS and to a person they all complained about their almost total inability to terminate screw ups/offs. Unless they're caught drunk etc. I'm pretty sure even that takes multiply occurances before discharge can occur.
Those two issues being rectified would very likely solve the hemorrhaging of red ink at USPS.
It's called the United States Postal SERVICE, not the US Postal Business. Since skud doesn't bother to understand how the USPS works, I'll let a friend, Tom Clay, do it:
"It's called the United States Postal ***SERVICE***. Not the US Postal Business. Since all of you melon-heads ain't got time to read no books, lemme tell you something else hoss, it doesn't lose money, it makes money every year but more importantly, IT'S NOT SUPPOSED TO TURN A PROFIT!
You know that we call the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines the 'Armed Services' right? How many years have Marines turned a profit? How about the Navy? Got any facts and figures on that skud? Cause the rest of us are plain stumped as to why you think the Postal Service needs to turn a profit but the Navy doesn't.
You know how Conservatives are always saying how they're such big fans of the 'Constitution'? Well, in Article 1 section 8, the founders you all love so much spelled out specifically that Congress alone shall have the power to create post offices and post roads. That doesn't mean the president gets to appoint his lackey to go in and start wrecking million dollar sorters that *we* paid for so Americans can go from getting their prescriptions on time to waiting an extra 2 weeks to get them because Louis DeJoy wants to help Trump cheat in this election by taking his sweet-ass time to deliver the mail.
I also want to remind all of you about Trump saying he was going to hire, 'the best people, the smartest people.' Well that might be happening in some other alternate universe but in this one, you don't 'improve' the postal service by destroying sorting machines and laying off postal employees when the demand for postal services are greater than they ever have been."
Ms Shaw, I have no argument with your assumptions above. The post office or postal service was never designed to make a profit. Again it was the incompetent elected elite who took tax subsidies from the postal service when they made it an independent agency in 1970. None of this changes the fact that it is a bloated, patronage, inefficient agency that needs to be privatized with competent leadership instead of political appointees. The Postal Service could be self supporting but not if it is run by bureaucrats who have no commitment other than to serve their time. Like most government run agency's efficiency and service are non-existent.
I do question that the demand for the postal service is greater than ever.
First-class mail volume peaked in 2001, declining by 43% as of 2017 due to the increasing use of email and the World Wide Web for correspondence and business transactions. Mr. Clay needs to not just based his "facts" on his political bent but on facts.
If the USPS were privatized you KNOW it would end up getting government subsidies. To offset the higher cost of delivering to rural customers. To keep rural republican voters happy (instead of hitting them with huge price increases). Also because republicans love giving taxpayer money to private enterprise. Better to keep the USPS under the control of THE PEOPLE. All that needs to be done is to get rid of the republican sabotage and the USPS will be fine.
Derv... We've given subsidies to rural voters for years. Roads, telephone coverage, electricity and yes, postal service are all provided to rural areas through taxes and surcharges on bills urbanites pay.
If many of those areas had to pay their own fare, they sure wouldn't like it.
Sounds pretty socialistic to me. But it sure has worked.
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