Last updated on 2011.12.06
...Mouth Full of Pancakes and Tea?
South Dakota postal workers and USPS veterans raised a ruckus in Sioux Falls Tuesday, calling on Congresswoman Kristi Noem to support legislation that would protect jobs and postal services across South Dakota. HR 1351, United States Postal Service Pension Obligation Recalculation and Restoration Act of 2011, is a relatively simple bill that would relieve the USPS of an exceptional financial burden imposed on it by Congress in 2006 to prefund projected retiree benefits for the next 75 years.
This simple accounting fix seems a lot simpler and certainly less destructive to rural mail service than shutting down 80 South Dakota post offices, firing lots of workers, and sending all Black Hills mail to Wyoming. HR 1351 currently has 220 co-sponsors, including at least three dozen Republicans. Congresswoman Kristi Noem is not one of them.
Those rallying postal workers dropped by Noem's Sioux Falls office Tuesday to deliver this message. Noem mouthpiece Joshua Shields mumbled that the Congresswoman was unavailable for comment and handed out another vacuous statement indicating the Congresswoman can't think past her slogan-fueling fantasies that everything can be solved by cutting waste and inefficiency.
Of course we know that Rep. Noem wasn't available for comment Tuesday because she was out in Rapid City having breakfast with Teabaggers... who I'm sure would rather we got rid of the federal government completely and carried our own mail across the state... on horses... on dusty trails... since our roads are built with lots of nasty federal money as well.
The Post Office is on the verge of bankruptcy. http://abcnews.go.com/US/us-postal-service-verge-broke-billions-dollars-red/story?id=12133108
As much as you might think the solution is a simple "accounting fix," this is a fix that if a public company tried to do it would be shut down by the SEC and Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation within minutes.
Cry as you might about the closure of local post offices, the Post Office for 20 years has refused to modernize. Some of it has been political pressure to keep open no longer efficient offices or consolidation of sorting operations. Some of it has been an unwillingness of management and the unions to face realities with the use of email/electronic communication (I no longer get any mail from my bank which used to be my number one "correspondent") and pare back services justified by usage. And, some of it has been a failure of the people (via Congress/President) to examine what place the Post Office should play in American life.
Whether it be the waste (failure to adapt) in the Post Office or the devoid of reality loan guarantee of Solyndra, conservatives and liberals should be united to always be open to honest examination of public expenditures to ensure we get the best bang for the buck. What may have been necessary 234 years ago, may not be necessary (at least in the same way) today.
While liberals and conservatives will always disagree in many ways what is proper for government, they should always agree some things need to be modernized. Failure to act for decades is a bad thing. But, failure to act today in light of what we know is inexcusable. HR1351 is the classic put your head in the sand action to further allow the Post Office to avoid what is inevitable- Cost cuts.
Yesterday, the Argus had an article that described the problem of the unfunded federal employee pensions and its impact on current services.
Pretending we don't have problems does nobody any good.
I doubt that Mr Jones and I would agree on much but his take on the Postal issue is spot on. The USPS has always had a monopoly on the mail. They could charge what they wanted and pay wages and benefits that were demanded. They truly failed to modernize and fought any technology that would "infringe" on their turf. When Electronic Transfer of Funds started up the Postal Service tried to argue that EFT was a postal function and they should get a cut. I am not sure that you should call the flack the postal service is getting "union busting". In my mind there is a great deal of difference when a company with a monopoly negotiates wages and benefits compared to a company that has to compete. The postal service, up until recently, was able to give it's employees anything they demanded. They just raised their rates and no one could do anything about it. Who else could carry your letter? You just waited in line, bought the stamps, and shut up. This monopoly meant the service did not have to modernize. What do we get in the mail these days that a day delay or no Saturday delivery is that critical. "USPS veterans"? Was there a war on in front of my mail box? They are retirees and very well paid retirees with health care for themselves and their spouses that you an I can only dream of. Ask retired United Airlines pilots what happens when your company faces tough competition or goes thru financial rough times.