Let's Talk About the Issues - Sanders Sends Letter to Postmaster General

[rhett o rick]

Wednesday, August 26, 2015

BURLINGTON, Aug. 26 – Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) sent a letter today to Postmaster General Megan Brennan urging the Postal Service to reinstate overnight mail delivery standards in light of a recent report finding significant delays in the delivery of mail.

“It is abundantly clear that the Postal Service’s decision to shut down more than 140 mail processing plants a few years ago and to eliminate overnight delivery standards this year has been a disaster that is negatively impacting Americans all over this country,” Sanders wrote in the letter. “I would urge the Postal Service to reinstate overnight delivery standards and speed up the delivery of mail as soon as possible.”

The slowdown in mail delivery has hurt seniors living on fixed incomes, veterans, and people living in rural areas particularly hard. In the letter, Sanders noted that “veterans and seniors have complained that it is now taking 9, and sometimes as much as 11 days, for them to receive life-saving prescriptions through the mail.”

Sanders has been leading the fight against cuts to the Postal Service. Sanders noted in the letter that the most significant reason for the financial problems at the Postal Service is due to the 2006 Bush-era mandate forcing it to pay $5.5 billion a year to prefund future retiree benefits. Excluding this mandate, the Postal Service has made more than $2 billion in profits over the past three years.

The Conservatives want to privatize the US Postal Service and plunder their resources leaving the taxpayers (99%) to pick up the tab. Support Senator Sanders and his efforts to save the USPS.

More at: http://www.sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/sanders-sends-letter-to-postmaster-general

[yeoman6987]

1. I haven't noticed any changes to the post office functions

[rhett o rick]

7. Ok, but what's your point? nm

[yeoman6987]

8. Obviously this is not a problem

[rhett o rick]

10. Sorry I am sarcasm impaired. Very good. nm

[yeoman6987]

11. Lol. I think what is most rediculous is the 75 year

Prepay per employee.

[rhett o rick]

12. Unbelievably outrageous. nm

[yeoman6987]

13. Yes it is. GOP thought that would destroy the USPS.

Nope made them stronger. FUGOP!

[Pauldg47]

15. They consolidated operations at Riverview and Southgate, Michigan...

Riverview no longer holds packages for us, and we have to drive six miles more to get them at the Southgate P.O.

So we're definitely seeing it.

[in_cog_ni_to]

2. I agree with him.

I live just South of Chicago. I have tracked mail that has landed in a Northern Chicago suburb, it was sorted there, routed to Champaign, IL- which is an hour and a half South of me - tracked back to Chicago and then to a local distribution area and then delivered. It's ridiculous.

However, I can't imagine not having a USPS. it certainly can't be privatized! Can you imagine how much a stamp would cost with profits added to it? No one could afford to mail letters/packages.

My B-I-L worked for the post office for 35 tears and took early retirement 2 years ago when it was offered - to get out before the Repubs completely destroyed the place.

Thank you Bernie for caring about this issue!

[Pauldg47]

18. The repuks are making the Postal Service look bad by their cuts....

....so then they can say the USPS is not performing up to standards.

[WillyT]

3. HUGE K & R !!! - THANK YOU !!!

[rhett o rick]

19. And thank you for all your posts. nm

[senz]

4. Republicans have attempted to destroy/privatize the USPS for at least a decade.

Reason?

1) The USPS had long been one of the most successful and publicly popular of government agencies.

2) The USPS is the largest employer of unionized public employees.

In 2006, the USPS was so successful that they were considering replacing all their delivery trucks with an electric fleet. Then Bush's Republican Congress kneecapped the agency and nearly destroyed it. It has never recovered.

Almost all of the postal service’s losses [since 2007] can be traced back to a single, artificial restriction forced onto the Post Office by the Republican-led Congress in 2006.

At the very end of that year, Congress passed the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006 (PAEA). Under PAEA, USPS was forced to “prefund its future health care benefit payments to retirees for the next 75 years in an astonishing ten-year time span” — meaning that it had to put aside billions of dollars to pay for the health benefits of employees it hasn’t even hired yet, something “that no other government or private corporation is required to do.”

As consumer advocate Ralph Nader noted, if PAEA was never enacted, USPS would actually be facing a $1.5 billion surplus today.

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2011/09/28/330524/postal-non-crisis-post-office-save-itself/

The Post Office is forced to pay the benefits of future employees who haven't even been born yet! Republicans fear the USPS and will not quit until it is entirely eliminated/privatized.

Bernie Sanders has spoken about this travesty for years.

[JackInGreen]

5. +1

[yeoman6987]

9. Of course when other areas run out of money

This extra chunk will be taken out and used for the general fund using IOUs in its stead.

[CharlotteVale]

6. K&R

[SoapBox]

14. Yay!

I'm glad to see that Bernie's is bringing the Postal Service into the fold of issues that need help.

I can't fathom how I would function with out them nor how small business would even function (from 20 years of experience).

[AzDar]

16. We NEED this man as our next President...

BERNIE !!!

[blackspade]

17. K&R for the USPS!

Good on Sanders. This is an issue that effects all of us.