Monday, November 11, 2013

Veterans, the Post Office, and the Right-Wing's efforts to eliminate both

Veteran's Day.

R. V. Burgin, a famous Marine who fought at Peleliu and Okinawa, joined the US Post Office after the War in The Pacific.

My regular postman is a Veteran. My mother works for the Post Office. Many Veterans have worked and do work for the Post Office after their military careers.

In 2006, the Republican Party hatched a plan to cripple the US Postal Office. The Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006 mandated the agency “pre-pay” into a fund that covers 75 years of health care costs for future retired employees. Under the mandate, the USPS is required to make an annual $5.5 billion payment over ten years.

In 2011, former Congressman Joe Walsh took time out of his busy schedule not paying child support to scream at Melissa Rakestraw, a postal worker and constituent, when she met Joe at a Coffee house to voice her concerns that a 2011 Republican Bill would destroy the Post Office,
"If the Postal Service can't compete in the marketplace," then Congressman Walsh shouted. "I am tired of propping it up!"
Of course, that's not true, the taxpayers are not "propping it up". Since reforms to the Postal Service in 1971, 1982 and 1984 the Post Office is not funded by Taxpayer welfare in contrast to Darrell Issa's lavish pension under the FERS and the free health care Walsh received to "prop" himself up and $350,000 dollars that Joe Walsh earned for his two years of "work" in Congress.

After video of the ignorant puerile Walsh came to light, Rakestraw told interviewers, "[E]arlier I had told him if he supports Darrell Issa‘s bill to reform the Post Office that 200,000 jobs could be lost. 20% of those employees are veterans. Mr. Walsh came up to me and said, ‘I do not care about the loss of public sector jobs.’"

As it specifically relates to the USPS the Plutocracy wants is a Rump Post Office. Lucrative routes will be privitazed (i.e. Manhattan, Hawaii to CONUS) while cost ineffective routes, the South Dakota Bad Lands or the wide open plains of rural Wyoming, will be run by the Post Office.

Issa, Joe Walsh, Peter Roskam and the Republicans goal is the desire of the Plutocracy; to eliminate what the US Post Service offers and represents; a living wage, reliable benefits, and a defined pension, a stable retirement. A chance to create a solid future for oneself and their family. 

The Republican Party are adamantly opposed to the Americans Middle Class and have been working for 35 years to grind them into dust,
"Who does Barack talk about all the time? The middle class. Since when in America do we have classes? Since when in America are people stuck in areas, or defined places called a class? That’s Marxism talk. When Republicans get up and talk about middle class we’re buying into their rhetoric of dividing America. Stop it." Republican Rick Santorum, former Senator and Presidential Candidate.
Getting rid of the Post Office will go along way towards destroying the Middle Class and driving 99% of Americans into Penury and Corporate Bondage.

6 comments:

ChickenHammer said...

Of course, that's not true, the taxpayers are not "propping it up". Since reforms to the Postal Service in 1971, 1982 and 1984 the Post Office is not funded by Taxpayer welfare in contrast to Darrell Issa's lavish pension under the FERS and the free health care Walsh received to "prop" himself up and $350,000 dollars that Joe Walsh earned for his two years of "work" in Congress.

USPS can honestly say it is not funded by the taxpayers but is that entirely true? The USPS has a fleet of over 200,000 delivery vehicles. The USPS is not required, and does not pay registration fees on these vehicles. This gives USPS a huge financial windfall at the expense of local taxpayers, and competitors, who get no comparable relief from their registration fees.

The USPS also enjoys government mandated price floors imposed on their competition. Yes you can send a first class letter via FedEx or USP but only if you pay a rate of at least six times the current rate for the first ounce of a single-piece of First Class Mail. That's hardly fair competition.

The USPS is an outdated service that only still exists because of the labor unions supporting it. There were elevator operators, there were typists, there were movie theatre projectionists, there were doormen, and plenty of other careers that no longer exist. The USPS mailman is soon to join that list.

the yellow fringe said...

"registration fees", that's the fell swoop advantage? Lets see, when I was manager of a company that owned a number of trucks I recall that registering our trucks came right off the bottom line as a direct expense. Then some (we didn't) get tax exemptions and/or IRB's to buy them in the first place. I really don't see that USPS is hurting their competitors with this truck tax advantage.

Grung_e_Gene said...

Let's see where did I read about the Post Office?

Oh yeah! The US Constitution!,

Article 1, Section 8, Clause 7:
To establish Post Offices and Post Roads.

Of course, as always the Constitution only matters to Right-Wingers when they believe it supports their position.

yellow fringe,
Through Bribery Fedex won the right to be exempted from several fair labor laws.

Because that's what eliminating the Post Office is all about, privatization and the transfer of wealth into the pockets of the Very Rich.

I've mailed letters from Hawaii to Chicago. The cost? 44cents. Can't wait to see what the price of mail will be once the glorious privatization takes over.

Free HealthCare said...

When the private sector takes on what the government thought it could do you get something like this

Dervish Sanders said...

I say so what if the post office does need to be subsidized? It never should have been (partially) privatized in the first place. It is a government service and most government services are paid for through our tax dollars. It does not need to "compete"... as Gene pointed out - it is in the Constitution.

Yes, that funding mandate was designed by the Republicans to destroy the Post Office.

FYI, a pet peeve of mine is the fact that a service like Stamps.com exists... this is something the Post Office itself could do! WHY IN THE WORLD are they allowing a for-profit company to make a profit off of them?

Also, Santorum is an idiot. Pretending there are not classes (based on the amount of money people have) does not magically make the classes not exist.

Grung_e_Gene said...

Dervish Sanders,

Actually I think Santorum's very smart here. Well, maybe devious is more accurate a description. Like many right-wingers today who have been consistently able to convince working class people to vote themselves into Wage Slavery and Corporate Bondage, Santorum's looking for a new way for poor people to dupe themselves into believing the Rich Capitalists give a shit about them.

As for the Post Office, the Constitution and the Rule of Law are PARAMOUNT to conservatives... except when they aren't.