The Postal Service is a public service for We, the People, not a business.

[midnight]

Manufacturing A Crisis

So Republicans have hamstrung the Postal Service, forcing it into "crisis" and are now "solving" the crisis by working towards dismantling and privatizing it. Here is how it works:

Require the Postal Service to "break even." (Again: the Department of Defense is not required to break even.
Require them to serve all areas of the country. (Which is a service to democracy and should continue.)
Keep them from raising or lowering rates as needed.
Keep them from using their competitive advantages to compete with private businesses.
Require them to pre-fund 75 years of health benefits.
When the Postal Service has the inevitable resulting financial "crisis" complain about government and unions and demand their buildings be sold, employees laid off and the service be dismantled and given to private companies.
If you don't see the pattern yet, try this:

http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/279-82/16027-why-you-should-be-outraged-by-what-is-being-done-to-our-postal-service

[abelenkpe]

1. K&R nt

[elleng]

2. Right. Sick

SoBs.

[Canuckistanian]

3. It's a government SERVICE

It's NOT required to be a profit-making enterprise.

Name ONE other government department that takes in more money than it spends.

[Isoldeblue]

6. Congress members? The Senate? n/t

[Canuckistanian]

7. They don't take in money

They're a pure expense.

[Isoldeblue]

9. I think the members take in plenty

with insider trading tips and who knows what-all. But you're right - they are a pure expense, who are barely earning a dime of what we pay them. We sure aren't getting our money's worth from them.

It makes me ill that we have no recourse against them, except to vote. But w/gerrymandering, even that doesn't count for much. It's too fucking depressing.

[Art_from_Ark]

8. Well, the US Mint takes in more money than it spends

The Mint calls it "seigniorage".

But yeah, the Post Office is supposed to be a public service, not a money-making corporation.

[eppur_se_muova]

10. ... and is vital to such functions of gov't as delivery of tax forms, SS, etc.

There is a REASON the Founders included the PO in the Constitution -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postal_Clause

[HiPointDem]

14. actually, it is. since 1970.

[lonestarnot]

4. Richie Rich and his pug friends are stealing us further into blindness.

[Isoldeblue]

5. Congress needs to reminded of the same

I'd like to see who in congress has stock or a vested interest in UPS, DPI or Fed-Express.

I wish we could curtail or remove the pensions and benefits from our elected officials, as easily as they can to things like the USPS.

We need to take some of their power away!!

[gussmith]

11. What Is It?

I hear often that the U.S. Postal Service is not a federal agency. What are they saying...it is not literally the Dept. of Postal Service? Sound to me like Congress has a hand in it AND ,it is losing money, scads of money, billions per quarter. The workers get a better wage grade that Civil Service, they get subsidized health insurance and they retire with a pension directed by Uncle Sam.

A lot is wrong with the postal service, a lot helps rural America. Like every other business, or service, it should survive an update or fail on lack of merit. Bring it on.

[TeamPooka]

12. k+r!

[midnight]

13. The austerity agenda that would cut services for working Americans in order to maintain tax breaks f

for the wealthy - and promote the privatization of public services - has many faces.
Most Americans recognize the threats to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid as pieces of the austerity plan advanced by House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI), and the rest of the Ayn Rand-reading wrecking crew that has taken over the Republican Party. But it is important to recognize that the austerity agenda extends in every direction: from threats to Food Stamps and Pell Grants, to education cuts, to the squeezing of transportation funding.

But the current frontline of the austerity agenda is the assault on the US Postal Service, a vital public service that is older than the country. And it is advancing rapidly. --John Nichols

[HiPointDem]

15. +1. It's frightening what is happening. And more frightening that most people don't seem to

realize it, or realize the implications for the majority of the population.

[Egalitarian Thug]

16. Some interesting facts about the USPS.

The only real problems the USPS has are Congress and gross mismanagement.

[midnight]

18. The graph showing employees going down, but mail volume going up is the same old same old...

Workers having to do more with less...

[Egalitarian Thug]

20. Exactly. Another interesting bit was that the all time highest volume of mail was in 2006,

the year the ridiculous pension funding mandate was passed.

[indepat]

17. Republicans licking their chops in glee at the prospects of the USPS being

parceled out among FEDEX, UPS, et al: perfect example of the workings of a corporatist government pissing on we the people for egregious corporate gain.

[Puzzledtraveller]

19. What can people who never or rarely use the USPS do to help?