Postal Service may default on a $5.5 billion trust fund payment (CNN)
The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) is having a hard time coming up with the $5.5 billion dollars it needs for a trust fund payment designed to give health benefits to future retirees. Easily so when just last week Postmaster General John Potter announces that the USPS expects to have yearly losses amounting to over $6 billion. To combat these losses the USPS wants to decrease mail delivery to five days a week and to shutter thousands of submit offices, but at the same time they will keep the rate of pay for workers the same, which is between $16-$25 (that's not including overtime and double time if they work more than 10 hours a day). The USPS fails every year and costs taxpayers billions. Proponents of the government monopoly claim that first-class mail is a losing industry, yet UPS begs to buy it from the US government every year. Why would a major private corporation beg to own a losing industry? The answer to the USPS problem is to let it fail and sell it to the highest bidder, or allow for competition in first-class mail and allow FedEx, UPS, and DHL compete to bring our mail to our front doors. This change would better serve the consumer. In the current situation, the federal employee is being served and not the consumer. The issue today is about the future retirees of the USPS, not the customers of the USPS, we the people.
The problem stems from the Postal Reorganization Act of 1970. This act of Congress was a direct response to the U.S. Postal Strike of 1970. (Do you see how fast things get done when they affect federal employees?). Wait a minute. Federal employees are allowed to unionize and practice collective bargaining? This is a direct violation of the constitution. The union can strike for higher wages and the Postmaster General, a non-elected but appointed position, can raise their wages, thus raising a federal budget without the consent of the people. The Postmaster General is appointed by an eleven member body call the Board of Governors that acts as a board of directors for the USPS. The Postmaster General does not have to be affirmed by anybody whatsoever, thus making the activities of the USPS, a government monopoly, virtually out of our control. The USPS should be abolished and sold to a private corporation, or reorganized to make it more of a people owned business rather than a bureaucratically (men behind desks) owned business.
And there is some reason for this current event.
Comments
Post a Comment