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Will House Republicans Let The Post Office Save Itself This Year?
By Pat Garofalo on Jan 4, 2013 at 5:35 pm
The United States Postal Service last year defaulted on a payment into its pension fund for the first time in its history. It then defaulted on a second payment later in the year, while posting record losses.
The Postal Service is in such dire financial straits because, unlike any other agency or private business, it is required by Congress to pre-fund 75 years worth of pension benefits. So USPS is paying for the pensions of employees it has not even hired yet. And while Congress could easily fix the problem, House Republicans last year couldn’t even bother to bring the matter up for a vote:
The old Congress, bogged down by disagreements between lawmakers from rural and urban districts and distracted by fiscal policy fights, has not been able to agree on legislation to overhaul the struggling agency.
A bipartisan bill that passed the Democratic-led Senate last year would have ended Saturday mail delivery and eased its benefit payment obligations.
But the Republican-led House of Representatives, which had advocated for aggressive post office closures, never voted on a postal bill.
Last year, Congress managed to rename 60 post office branches, while doing nothing to alleviate the USPS’ nonsensical requirements. Meanwhile, the alternative solution — closing post office branches — hits America’s poorest communities the most.
glassman
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the red states need the post office most.
cable is not available in most rural areas. DSL is hit and miss, and UPS and fedex lose moeny trying to deliver out inthe boondocks..
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if they file this suit? it is time to re-institute draconian anti-trust laws in response. of course they won't do that.... why is oil so expensive? because the anti-trust laws were not enforced during the coproate consolidation period of the end of the last century. in specific> Texaco should not have been allowed to be absorbed by Chevron there have been no oil shortages, there is only a shortage of real Capitilistic competition. I am not against cheveron or any of the oil co's. I just take issue with why we have allowed anti-trust laws to be ignored.
"We have here the problem of bigness. Its lesson should by now have been burned into our memory by Brandeis. The Curse of Bigness shows how size can become a menace--both industrial and social. It can be an industrial menace because it creates gross inequalities against existing or putative competitors. It can be a social menace...In final analysis, size in steel is the measure of the power of a handful of men over our economy...The philosophy of the Sherman Act is that it should not exist...Industrial power should be decentralized. It should be scattered into many hands so that the fortunes of the people will not be dependent on the whim or caprice, the political prejudices, the emotional stability of a few self-appointed men...That is the philosophy and the command of the Sherman Act. It is founded on a theory of hostility to the concentration in private hands of power so great that only a government of the people should have it." Dissenting opinion of Justice Douglas in United States v. Columbia Steel Co.
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