How Darrell Issa and the Right Are Planning to Kill the U.S. Post Office

[Galraedia]

After a stopgap measure last year, Congress will once again debate whether the United States Postal Service as we know it can survive. The better question is: Will Congress let it?

The U.S. Postal Service is at risk of defaulting on healthcare obligations or exceeding its debt limit by the end of the year. Last month, USPS management unveiled a “Path to Profitability” that would eliminate over a hundred thousand jobs, end Saturday service and loosen overnight delivery guarantees. The Postal Service also proposes to shutter thousands of post offices. “Under the existing laws, the overall financial situation for the Postal Service is poor,” says CFO Joe Corbett. Republicans have been more dire, and none more so than Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, who warned of a “crisis that is bringing USPS to the brink of collapse.”

Listening to Issa, you’d never know that the post office’s immediate crisis is largely of Congress’s own making. Conservatives aren’t wrong to say that the shift toward electronic mail – what USPS calls “e-diversion” – poses a challenge for the Postal Service’s business model. (The recent drop-off in mail is also a consequence of the recession-induced drop in advertising.)

But even so, in the first quarter of this fiscal year, the post office would have made an operational profit, if not for a 75-year healthcare “pre-funding” mandate that applies to no other public or private institution in the United States.

Read more: http://www.alternet.org/story/154596/how_darrell_issa_and_the_right_are_planning_to_kill_the_u.s._post_office_

[Ilsa]

1. Maybe we should all snail-mail some letters (a few hundred thousand) to Issa.

Let him know that we support the PO and its mission. Even empty envelopes, or with only index cards in them.

[opihimoimoi]

2. Yup, I'm in....send to D Issa.....us congress

[Hubert Flottz]

11. D Issa is among the very worst of the worst.

Totally EVIL!

[opihimoimoi]

12. Evil peeps should not be in public office...poor results happen...Issa should be 86'd asap

[Hubert Flottz]

14. I can't think of one good thing Issa has EVER done.

Nothing...nada.

[madamesilverspurs]

3. One wonders

how deeply Issa and his cronies are invested in those entities (like UPS, FedEx, for example) that would get postal business if the post office folds. Issa sure isn't above engineering something that would ultimately enrich him handsomely.

[elleng]

4. One doesn't have to wonder very much.

[elleng]

5. PLEASE, all, open the link,

and SHARE at fb etc, ask friends to contact Congresscritters.

[anti-alec]

6. Easy fix, just stop the prefunding on the pension - USPS has covered their pension for more

than 40+ years in advance.

When was the last time anyone worked for USPS or collected pension for 40+ years?

Issa is an idiot - and I hope there's a challenger awaiting for him in California.

There should me THOUSANDS of ads blaring on TV, radio, newspaper exposing Issa for the scum he really is.

Nothing but a car thief.

Issa needs to be removed, and then placed under arrest, sentenced to life in prison - preferably in Pelican Bay, forcing him to sleep in one of those overcrowded gyms.

Issa has been stealing from California for the last 11 years. It's time to end his career.

I am willing to donate the maximum to any serious challenger for Issa.

[Major Hogwash]

7. When did Congress force the Post Office to "pre-fund" their pension?

What year did that happen?

[datasuspect]

8. Simple: the US Post Office has long been a path to the middle class for many families

duh.

[alferoutou]

9. Do they plan on Amending the US Constitution too?

See Article 1, Section 8

[Hubert Flottz]

10. The GOP wants to destroy everything of any value in the USA.

They want another Third Reich.

[nanabugg]

13. They really just want to foment anger and suffering while Obama is President. nt

[sofa king]

15. Think about the hit that would have on the economy.

It already costs close to ten times the USPS amount to send a letter through corporate mail-carrying, with much less reliability (tracking numbers don't mean shit when the drivers forge thousands of signatures a day, and once they have us by the balls they'll absolve themselves of all liability).

The first thing they'll do is pin a minimum transaction rate on every piece of mail, and it will also be at least ten times the price of a stamp because just like banks the non-governmental carriers won't want your business if you're poor.

Mass-mailings will be too expensive to send, cutting off a major fundraising route for non-profit organizations from gun rights groups to universities. The printing industry will go down too, because they rely heavily on printed coupons and crap advertisements to even out the year. The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, and other mailed newspapers will cost ten bucks a day. All online commerce for physical goods below a $10 will effectively end, because it will cost more to ship those truck gonads than it actually cost to make and sell them.

That malaise will extend to small store-fronts, like bookstores, tourist shops, cigar stores, and other places that rely upon a steady stream of small shipments which will skyrocket in cost as soon as a subsidized competitor, the USPS, is killed off. Think airline tickets, cable fees, and other areas where government regulations have been rolled back and monopolies have been handed to corporate entities.

It is appropriate that it is Darrell Issa, the amoral Jiminy Cricket who rides the shoulder of the Republican Party, who is leading this charge, obviously backed by spectacular promises of money and power in return for making the American peoples' lives less convenient and more expensive.

That is, after all, what Republicans do.

[Galraedia]

16. Darrell Issa on unions: