Why are the republicans bound and determined to kill the USPS?

[just for laughs]

http://postalnews.com/postalnewsblog/201...-the-usps/


Anti-Free Market Republicans Want to Kill the USPS to Create a Monopoly for UPS and FedEx


Anyone who operates a business understands that maintaining funds for employees to keep their enterprise running smoothly is as important as providing a quality product. If a business is fortunate enough to cover employee expenses for an entire year, they could most likely weather any storm whether it is a slowdown in sales or increased costs for materials, utilities, and supplies. However, there is no operation that could survive if they were required to keep employee funds in reserve for 75 years, and any sane business owner would know that unrealistic expectation would be tantamount to deliberately destroying even the most profitable business. Unfortunately, Republicans imposed such a requirement on the United States Postal Service (USPS), and their goal of destroying one of the most successful government programs since the nation’s founding is nearing fruition.

Republicans have long sought to dismantle government to hand it over to privatization and enrich their corporate donors, as well as to advance the notion that government services are failures and cannot succeed unless they function under the private control of free market capitalists. What rankles Republicans more than anything are government programs that are popular, successful, and self-sustaining, and it explains their decades-long assault on the Social Security Trust, Medicare, and recently, the Postal Service. In 2006, the Republican-controlled Congress passed a law, the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act (PAEA) that forced the USPS to “prefund its future health care benefit payments to retirees for the next 75 years in a ten-year time span” that meant it had to set aside billions of dollars in reserve yearly to pay health benefits for employees it has not hired, or not even born yet. No other government program, such as the Defense Department, or private corporation for that matter, is required to do anything like PAEA because it would bankrupt them within a decade if not sooner, and it is precisely Republicans’ goal for the USPS.

The Postal Service is a constitutionally mandated agency and although the corporate-controlled media and politicians push the “postal service crisis” meme without pause, it is a “manufactured crisis” to annihilate some of the GOP’s favorite targets; public employees, unions, decent wages, healthcare, retirement, and of course, a popular and efficient government agency. One of the biggest drivers (85%) of the deliberately created Postal Service budget deficit originates with the PAEA pre-funding mandate regardless that “the pension is over-funded and reserves for retiree health care are far higher than the federal government as a whole” according to the post office Inspector General. The USPS is also “required to break even” unlike any other department or agency, including the Defense Department, so the GOP cannot refute the claim their sole purpose in PAEA is breaking the Postal Service within ten years. Without the PAEA, the USPS would not have “a net deficiency of nearly $20 billion, but instead be in the black by at least $1.5 billion,” and it would destroy the Republican myth that all government operations break the nation and require dismantling and tendering to corporations.
Got the first two that didn't read the link, otherwise they would know why.
The USPS is over 200 years old, and you can still send a letter for only 49 cents. Show me another mail service that have the same to brag about.
Wallyz, You say you're to lazy to read it? Or do you have that ADHD? Or you actually don't want to learn anything?

[john]

Are you for real? They've been running in the red (by the tens of millions) for years. They are killing themselves. They don't need help from Republicans.

[Edgar]

Why does anyone wish to eat toast - heer whut ahm sayun, "liberal"?

[ndmagicman]

A very simple answer.

What is the largest union in the US?
You guessed it. The United Postal Workers Union.
It is just more attacks on the blue collar, middle class workers of this country disguised by the far right as a budget issue.
Truth is the USPS was operating in the black prior to the Congressional Republicans sabotage of requiring them to fund 75 years of medical and retirement benefits and giving them 10 years to do it. That is a $5.4 billion dollar payment per year.

[Cicero]

I think FedEx just put the last nail in their coffin by offering flat-rate service to compete with their Priority Mail.

If the USPS ran efficiently, actually paid on insurance claims when justified, hired without AA, and paid competitive wages and benefits, they might have a few years left.

How to revive it? Go to every other day residential delivery, and bring retirement plans more in line with other companies.

[WallyZ]

Your post is a bit long for me to spend time reading it but here are the two biggest reasons.
1. They have a huge pension fund that republicans want to get their hands on
2. Almost all the workers are in a union who, for the past several years, have contributed to the Democratic party candidates. The republicans want to break that up. z

[★Ŕ♡MΛŔƐ★]

I am going to give you the simple and correct answer: The USPS is the largest union employer in the country.

[Pat]

They aren't.
That would take a constitutional amendment, and no one has introduced such an amendment.
Ever.

The Postal Service is Not a GOP Target.
http://voices.yahoo.com/the-postal-servi...tml?cat=37