Response to Washington Post Editorial Board’s “The Postal Service needs more than a Band-Aid,” February 13, 2017.
The Post has set up a false dilemma for its readers: that we must curtail postal services (including Saturday delivery) and eliminate jobs to save the USPS from certain deterioration and failure. They base this on claims that the Postal Service “can’t pay their bills” and is sluggish to innovate.
In reality, Congress manufactured USPS’ “crisis” by imposing an unfair, crushing financial mandate on the Postal Service that no other government agency or private company is forced to bear. (The Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006 compels the USPS to pay approximately $5.5 billion per year to fund future retiree healthcare costs 75 years in advance.) Without this unreasonable burden, the USPS would have enjoyed an operating profit of $610 million in 2016 and over $1.2 Billion in 2015. Including the first quarter of Fiscal Year 2017, USPS has seen an operating profit of $3.7 billion since the start of FY 2014. This same legislation holds the Postal Service back from introducing new non-postal services, services that could strengthen the USPS. This crisis was created by Congress, and it can be corrected.
The Post’s rationale for cutting services is one we have seen before, promoted by forces complicit in the drive towards demonizing, destroying, and ultimately privatizing public postal services. But the Postal Service continues to rank highest in public support among all federal agencies, while providing affordable mail service to all without a dime of taxpayer money. Every day, the Postal Service ties together communities, supports commerce and, increasingly, the boom of e-commerce, and provides the foundation for financial stability for workers from all walks of life.
We do not have to settle for the false choice offered by The Washington Post. The more than 100 organizations which make up A Grand Alliance to Save Our Public Postal Service believe that the public good must not be sacrificed for private profit. We advocate for an alternative vision, one of expanded and enhanced services that sustain a vibrant public postal service for generations to come. Local post offices could offer non-profit, consumer-friendly financial services, for example. Other ideas include outfitting post offices to serve as hubs for local food banks, internet access, and green energy infrastructure. Let’s continue to work together to bring these ideas into reality.
So why does not Congress correct the problem? Who is benefiting from the present set-up?
The Republicans in office, mainly, profit by advancing the cause of private services that are trying to take over the USPS service. The congress under the Rs has launched an attack on the USPS that’s lasted for several years. The outrageous retiree-cost pre-funding demand (of 75 years) is one example of the lengths they go to in their quest. I suppose these private businesses support those Republican legislators who take on their cause. They are the “government is no good” gang that’s been in control of the country for far too long. How can we bring them down? They’re long overdue for a fall!
BTW, in Austria and Switzerland their postal services provide basic banking services — something the USPS wants to do but has been blocked by the control of congress. If you want to know whom to blame for “lack of innovation,” look no further than your nearest Republican representative.
Cronies like big corporate honchos who clap hands with certain politicians. And evidently certain media. They want to see “The Sanctity of The Mails” flushed down the tubes, so they can cater to the rich, and if the poor can’t afford PAID mail delivery… “Let them die and decrease the surplus population (Ebenezer Scrooge).”
Congress does not want to correct the problem because the members of Congress will be the ones buying up the new privatized Postal Service to make money hand over fist when they jack the rates up and stick it to the public
MaryAnn,
The companies of UPS ,FED-EX, and the other delivery services are benefiting from the present set-up that The post office board of Governors who never worked for the Post office and who are CEO’S OF BIG CORPORATIONS decided to break up the USPS. They met 4 times a year and get $250,000.00 a year for those meetings. The congress forgets that in the late 40’s and 50’s the post office paid all of the Governments bills. They have also told the USPS that they have to pay 25 years of INS. ahead and no
other Government agency is required to do this.
I also worked for the USPS FOR 40 YEARS.
The WaPo’s editorial is but another instance of post-truth political maneuvering by institutions (predominately corporations and their minions, political parties) to get the anti-democratic financial results they want. Their version of economics excludes common, everyday people, their needs and desires.
I strongly support your efforts, and wish you success. Shame on all those that are trying to privatize it for their own greed!! You have many ideas on the ways your services can be expanded, particularly in the area of financial services for those who lack readily available ones. That is probably a no-no as far as the greedheads are concerned.
Thank you for your continued battle.
I support the USPS and the idea of bringing banking services into the post offices.
The US Postal Service is one of the few things in modern life that was noted in the Constitution. If the Postal Service was left alone it wouldn’t be in the fix it is in now.
The Washington Post is wrong.
Long live the United States Postal Service!
All nonprofits with mailing programs should support the alliance and our wonderful postal service. It delivers, rain or shine, to every remote corner of our country.
Thank you so much for this articulate defense and rebuttal of the Washington Post position. People do not hear these ideas widely enough. Is it possible to mount a public service-type campaign — e.g., posters on buses, trains, and billboards — that would provide a counterforce to the disinformation being spread by the USPS’s attackers? The response to the Post is good, but there is so much more that needs to be said and published on this issue!
As an AFSCME retiree, I wholeheartedly support the USPS and its effort to return banking to the postal offices that will benefit many low income people.
Amen!
FOR YEARS CONGRESS HAS SUCKED DOLLARS FROM THE USPS ( AND ANY OTHER FEDERAL AGENCY THAT WAS IN THE “BLACK”) TO FUND THEIR “SPECIAL” PROJECTS. THEY “BORROW” THE MONEY, USE T-BILLS AS COLLATERAL KNOWING IT TAKES THEM 20-30 YEARS TO MATURE. THEN CONGRESS MUST APPROVE THE REPAYMENT!! HOW’S THAT FOR A CONFLICT OF INTEREST??? ENOUGH.
Here here.
The USPS has always provided a fine service. Protect it!
Congress is in the process of making the USPS look like it is losing money to attract offers to buy out and privatize it.
The private money that buys the USPS will take it into bankruptcy, have its obligations to pensions discharged in court, and use the assets of the USPS pension fund to perform another “miraculous private sector turnaround”.
The big money gets bigger and the losers will be bigger losers.
The USPS is a national treasure. We cannot abandon this true American institution, one that has provided good jobs for millions of Americans over the decades . It is a well oiled machine, more efficient than any other service we have in this country. Why would we want it privatized? It would be un-American .
Unfortunately, the owners of FedEx and UPS have bought a lot of friends in Congress. Too bad WAPo didn’t look at Amazon’s deliveries. I suspect they’d find, as I did, that USPS is more reliable, faster, and cheaper than the commercial businesses–even at Christmas, they’re on time and don’t lose packages.
This is one area where being privatized wouldn’t work so well. Mail would need to be shifted to different carriers, causing delay and postage would be much more expensive. Funding health care 75 years in advance is not practical. Congress should be ashamed of themselves.
In some smaller offices such as the one I retired from, the computer counted transactions as needing 5 windows and we only had 3 windows! What’s more, people were backed out the door because of two things- a very slow computer program (nation wide) and not having the budget to have more than one or two clerks when at peak times needing 5! Those members of Congress trying to destroy the Postal service should be required to work the window and see for themselves what their budget has done to both worker and customer. Shameful!
I agree with all of the above. This country depends on the USPS to deliver mail & packages especially to those areas where the for-profit companies won’t go. Expanding USPS services would be very welcome, especially to those of us living in out-of-the-way places. I suggest we all write our congressional representatives & senators & ask them to take action to remove the unreasonable restraints placed on the USPS and consider the needs of their constituants over big business..