Rothschild reports: "'The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) today continued its tradition under the leadership of Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe of shooting itself in the foot,' Nader said. 'The only question that remains is: When will the madness end?'"
Letter carrier Kevin Pownall delivers mail in Philadelphia. (photo: Matt Rourke/AP)
Nader, Sanders Condemn Postal Service Decision
07 February 13
onsumer advocate Ralph Nader and Senator Bernie Sanders condemned the U.S. Postal Service for its decision to end Saturday delivery.
"The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) today continued its tradition under the leadership of Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe of shooting itself in the foot," Nader said. "The only question that remains is: When will the madness end? By ending Saturday letter delivery in August 2013, as the USPS has proposed, millions of customers who take advantage of its services will be harmed, mail service will be slowed, and the USPS's current death spiral will deepen."
Nader also called into question the legality of the move.
"In making the move to end Saturday letter delivery, Postmaster General Donahoe has not only shown his complete disregard for the good of the USPS's consumers, but he has also ignored the will of Congress," Nader said. "For decades, Congress has mandated six-day delivery. Congress must act to protect rural communities, small businesses, the elderly, and the disabled, among others by reasserting its authority over the U.S. Postal Service and stopping it from making such an irresponsible decision."
Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont echoed Nader. "The postmaster general cannot save the Postal Service by ending one of its major competitive advantages," he said. "Cutting six-day delivery is not a viable plan for the future." Sanders added that it "will harm rural America while doing very little to improve the financial condition of the Postal Service. Providing fewer services and less quality will cause more customers to seek other options. Rural Americans, businesses, senior citizens and veterans will be hurt by ending Saturday mail."
Both Nader and Sanders noted that the financial burden the Postal Service faces was manufactured by Congress. In 2006, Congress required the Postal Service to "pre-fund 75 years' worth of future retiree health benefits over a 10-year period," said Sanders. "That pre-funding requirement is responsible for about 80 percent of the Postal Service's financial losses since 2007. No other government agency, no other corporation in America is burdened with this mandate. This mandate must be lifted."
Nader pointed out how silly this mandate is, saying it "effectively forces the USPS to prefund retiree health benefits for some of its future employees who haven't even been born yet!"
Nader added: "Postmaster General Donahoe has demonstrated that he lacks the political courage to stand up to Congress and tell them that they caused this mess and they need to fix it."
Nader called for Donahoe to resign.
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Comments
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Such are the "benefits" of privatization and semi-privatizat ion of what used to be solely owned and operated government agencies.
And we should all be advocating for limits on executive compensation. Executive compensation could capped,for example, at no more than 10 times the pay of the lowest paid full-time employee of the company. This policy would place more value on working people and increase jobs. Beyond the practical value of such a law, the idea that hugely compensated executives are worth 100 or 1,000 people working for them is patently absurd on its face.
Your contribution is ENTIRELY valid, and on point ! However, driving the Post Office out of business is EXACTLY what this legislation was DESIGNED to do. Small wonder that it's working so well, with only one lone voice in Congress, Sanders, accurately trying "call B.S." on it !
You know what is happening. The republicans are intent on destroying the postal system in order to set up something
private, less effective and much more expensive. I believe that most people do not know that the postal system does not get ONE CENT of tax money.
The small business I work for often receives mail from just a hundred miles away 3 weeks after it's postmark date, mangled, or sometimes not at all. The local post office nazi set up one hoop after another to jump through for us to do mass mailings- the rules changed as soon as we conformed to them. (We no longer use it for mass mailings). We have both a PO Box and a Street address. The PO changed our street address by one digit and refuses to deliver mail if the street address on it is the old one- even if it has the correct PO Box# on it.
Would any other business survive giving this kind of service? probably not. Ditching Saturday delivery will not solve their problems- it will just make more problems.
To JJJ--When I was a business manager we had to get rush contracts, letters and packages out, and hope that our vendors got to us. All the major privateer carriers LOST or gravely delayed our material. It was insured, but the lost time lost us business. THE ONLY RELIABLE CARRIER THAT NEVER LOST OR MISLAID ANYTHING WAS THE U.S. POST OFFICE'S EXPRESS MAIL! And it was half the cost. I ordered our operation to stop using commercial carriers because, with their low pay and lack of benefits, their employees were FAR less skilled and reliable, while the good old postal clerk or mail deliverer who was probably a neighbor knew everyone on the route. Privatization ups the price of any service, lowers the quality and crushes competition. It never fails! I've got another tale to tell about privatized trash collection--and the Mafia connection!
To JJJ--When I was a business manager we had to get rush contracts, letters and packages out, and hope that our vendors got to us. All the major privateer carriers LOST or gravely delayed our material. It was insured, but the lost time lost us business. THE ONLY RELIABLE CARRIER THAT NEVER LOST OR MISLAID ANYTHING WAS THE U.S. POST OFFICE'S EXPRESS MAIL! And it was half the cost. I ordered our operation to stop using commercial carriers because, with their low pay and lack of benefits, their employees were FAR less skilled and reliable, while the good old postal clerk or mail deliverer who was probably a neighbor knew everyone on the route. Privatization ups the price of any service, lowers the quality and crushes competition. It never fails! I've got another tale to tell about privatized trash collection--and the Mafia connection!
Hey I'm not making the news here- just reporting our experiences. Sorry if y'all don't like it but- it's true.
Sounds like your local PO is particularly incompetent. This could easily be a result of bad local management and have nothing to do with the overall system.
Find others in your area experiencing this and organize communications about these lost packages and other delivery failures to the Postal Inspector's Office and/or to the Office of the Post Master General. Might not happen in a week or even a month, but I bet you get results.
I have enjoyed similar positive experience with USPS.
In addition to rush items like business contracts, etc., I rely upon USPS for delivery of critical meds and for equally critical refrigerated medical supplies.
Imaging the state of said refrigerated supplies if they hit the P.O. on Friday after the regular mail goes out, and we are having a three-day weekend. That means that my medical supplies are sitting and thawing for FOUR DAYS before I get them. They are, by that time RUINED ! They are too expensive to throw out, but there is no other option. Then they must be REORDERED, and the delivery date crapshoot starts all over again.
Good luck using the Privatized Services, they LIKEWISE don't deliver on weekends.
Sad to say, if the corporations WANT the USPS, they will TAKE the USPS, and all the heroic posturing in the world from the Honorable Bernie Sanders will stand to no avail.
Wow- a bit of a shock to see that RSN readers are as capable of selective understanding as any republican I've ever met! You don't like our experiences with the PO ? Neither did we- perhaps you just don't want to hear about it?
For clarity- We DID conform to every mass mailing rule put before us, but they changed every time we did so. You refer to "misaddressed" mail with the correct PO BOX# on it? Bet I know where you work!
I'm completely sure that most folks will be of the opinion that the lack of Saturday delivery is NOT a good thing. The P.O. may have less mail to deliver now that the internet has become a major means of contact for us, but I and a bazillion others still want it around.
Are wages going to be cut as well? What about other employee benefits?
When corporate raiders complete a hostile take over, wages and benefits rarely go UP !
That's exactly what is taking place here, only that the raiders must use the TOOLS that they have bought and paid for in Congress.
And, all of you retired USPS workers out there counting on your pensions to carry you through your remaining days may want to apply for that opening as a greeter down at WorstMart.
Taxes are the only thing that will force investment in children of America's future. If those marginal tax penalties are just too high to exploit and take flight..
Johnson, opened Tijuana in 65 after Kennedy lowered FDR's corporate taxes from 91% to 71%. This was the first US model, of Mussolini's creation, with Export Processing Zones and the beginnings of real tax & tariff flight.
After almost 50 years of this absurd exploitation, how's it working out those other than the corporations?
The vast majority of the Tijuana workers still have no running water, no sewage facilities, no electricity.. Unforgivable..
And. just what are those marginal tax rates that are being proposed now for the fiscal cliff solution? How are we going to generate real investments? Or, are we just going to continue to be helpless victims where our Communities suffer from the boots of Trans National Corporations whose only objective is to, "colonize" our Communities dry with no commitment or responsibility towards the future of the Community?
Didn't Benjamin Franklin create the postal service as a public/governme nt entity? From then till now, there's actually been no calamitous disaster threatening USPS, until manufacturing a crisis, as the article points out.
That's about how logical this crap is in the true spirit of "If it works, fix it!
To follow on from "David Starr"s post they main function of congress has been to manufacture crisis after crisis from the alleged "fiscal cliff" or government funding to panic-mongering over Iran.
Nice work if you can get it!
Oh shitsky, I did it again! Please read SCOTUS for SCOUTS, silly bugger me!
[quote name="slimslide r"]
I say be careful what you wish for
The new plan is not new at all, but is fashioned on the template that was used to make profits for those at the top to the detriment of workers and service to the public.
Oh? Try to get UPS or FedEx to deliver to a home 8 miles down a rutted path from the nearest town in upstate Alaska for 47 cents. Or, for that matter, to any isolated place. They don't do it for any price. In fact they ship lots of their stuff to Post Offices for final delivery.
There is one problem for the scum who want to privatize the PO. The constitution specifically mandates it to be there.
Justr as the 14th amendment requires paying our bills, making the act of NOT raising the debt limit unconstitutional.
There's nothing wrong with the US that the death of the Republican party wouldn't cure. At least until the Dems became as corrupt as the Republicans.
I don't think it's going to work out so well for the folks who are using postal services or working for the post office.
Why can't I go to the post office and send a payment to via the Internet? A fee could be charged. Why can't I go to the post office and make some copies to send to someone? ..or buy a full line of wrappings and packagings? ...or drop off hazardous recycling items like mercury containing lights or nicad-batteries ? A truck comes to the post office twice a day which is maybe 10% loaded to capacity!
The USPS must adapt to changing times by expanding the scope and nature of its services to make itself more valuable and functional in our communities.
Why is the Post Office counter closed during lunch hour when folks can get to the Post Office?!?
The impact of the absurd pension funding requirement has been devastation but the archaic mindset of PO administrators has also hamstrung the institution.
In the lame duck session when the Republicans knew they were losing both houses and wouldn't be able to do it in the new Congress.
Because Congress forbids them to do those things.
However that is not the problem. This is the problem & the P.O. issue is just a small part of it.
MINNEAPOLIS STAR TRIBUNE
Let's look at what we have learned from this election:
Twenty-one of 22 incumbent senators were re-elected, and 353 of 373 incumbent members of the House were re-elected.
The American people have re-elected 94 percent of the incumbents who were running for re-election to an institution that has an approval rating of about 9 percent.
This indicates, as an electorate, we are a nation of idiots.
We're now stuck with the useless, dysfunctional government that we deserve.
Incompetence & corruption - hell of a combo.
I live in Torrance south of LA in a very nice residential area, Palos Werdes, and Rolling Hills with multimillion dollar homes, all have trash removal only ONCE a week. In the fifty years I have lived here we never had more than once a week, and that works fine.
By the way, UPS is union, but Fedex is not.
It seems that the Republicans are more than willing to declare a filibuster at the drop of a hat against most any Bill that Obama and the Democrats want to have passed that will actually do some good for the common man in this country or when Obama has nominated some truly decent person for either a cabinet post (which doesn't seem to happen too often) or for a position on the federal bench, but I have to ask Senator Bernie Sanders why he, an independent, and most of the Senate Democrats, did not threaten a filibuster when this and so many other odious Bills came up for a floor vote in the Senate?
You can't complain when you allowed a Bill to pass that is literally forcing the USPS to make ugly decisions in order to make budget.
You must be referring to the Republicans who created this problem.
It its attempt to privatize everything in this country, the Republican Congress has put restrictions on the Post Office that absolutely no company, well maybe the banks or the oil companies excluded, could possibly manage. So, to save money and comply, our Post Office is forced to shut down for one day a week.
It's going to be like your ice cream cartons and everything else you buy in the supermarkets these days....."NEW PACKAGING"----- with less in the package, and next year it will be less.....but the price remains the same.
Here, though, the Post Office has had to increase the price of stamps AND cut Saturday delivery just to stay in business.
Oh, Americans...... YOU are NOT going to be the next CEO of one of these giant corporations the Republicans are trying to create....from privatizing prisons, to schools.
Do a little work and check it out for yourself....or watch something else other than Fixed News.
Of course the 75 year-funding requirement is ridiculous but raising the price of the basic stamp would be realistic: For distances much much smaller the current rate in France for a 20g letter just went up 2 pennies at 0.58 euro which means $0.78!!
So for 2/3 oz and 3times the distance travelled or more a letter in the US could easily be $1.00
DO NOT EXPECT USPS to survive at the current rates!
However, international mail rates have quickly doubled (letters) and small package rates trough Global priority is now so high that no small business can sell overseas via USPS!
I used to pay $10.90 (2007 or so)for a flat global mail envelope going to Europe I think it's over $20 Now; and no oil prices do not justify this.
It is pure politics as fewer customers are using international and the outrage did not raise much hell for USPS as raising basic stamp rates to say 70 cents a VERY low rate compared to all European countries.
PS: a 1 ounce letter there is at 0.97 euro or $1.32!! (up to 1.66oz).
THINK ABOUT IT!!
As soon as the USPS is destroyed the GOP will pursue all other unions in the federal and state governments.
Moneyed interests in their greed have lost sight of the fact that people without good jobs don't buy much and don't end up being particularly good workers.
The cost of the Afghan War ... $2.03 Billion per WEEK .. lot of cost, negative benefits ..
Postal service touches positively millions of rural Americans ... benefit is multidimensiona l ... even my dogs recognize the mail truck and have the specific - happy bark greeting ..
Mail delivery person is such an icon .. This country is VERY sick (money sick ..)
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