BURLINGTON, Vt. April 13 – U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) issued the following statement Friday after President Donald Trump signed an executive order demanding an evaluation of the Postal Service’s finances:
“President Trump is right that it would be useful to take a serious look at the United States Postal Service. He is dead wrong, however, if he believes the ultimate solution is to privatize the Postal Service, which now employs over 630,000 Americans. The reality is that since 2014, the Postal Service has made an operating profit of more than $2.7 billion. The main reason for the financial problems at the Postal Service stems from a 2006 mandate forcing it to pre-fund 75-years of future retiree health benefits to employees who haven’t even been born yet. There is no other private business or government agency that is burdened with such an absurd and draconian requirement. If the Postal Service is going to be a vibrant entity, we must end this Bush-era mandate. We must also allow the Postal Service to raise new revenue by offering innovative new services that the American people need, including basic banking services.”
Neither party cares about the Post Office or it’s employees. Sanders blames the ‘Bush era’ legislation but I don’t recall Democrats repealing this legislation when Obama was elected with a veto-proof Congress.
PAPS,
I agree with you.
You should invited by Washington to sit in front of Congress.
I especially agree with the different rules for Rural, City, Contract carriers.
We have to do that new “load Truck” every morning.
Rural carriers in our office don’t. Yet its’ supposedly for customers to
track their parcels better.
prefund…..the broken record is at it again. once more time….former PMG Pat Donehoe and the Government Accounting Office said the prefunding is a cannard….fake news. they have not paid one dime into it since 2009 yet they have lost over 130 Billion since that time……..time to put the prefunding lie to bed once and for all. you will always have people who want to keep the status quo…..they benefit, I get that, but this place is at stage 4 cancer and getting worse (if that is really possible lol) Bush 1, Clinton, Bush 2, Obammy….nobody cared about this dump and let it rot like a termite infested house……..now it’s falling apart and President Trump has been the only President to say lets investigate this mess………45 years too late! PO Mismanaging Bureaucrats are criminals that need to go! I say give me my 40K BUYOUT and then break it up! private business like UPS & FDX will do a better job for AMERICAN CITIZENS! PO Bureaucrats think it is run for them and them alone……and get rid of that PFP bonus scam!
PAPS……nothing about the PO Bureaucrats with only a high school education or GED…….try no management position without a college degree. I have had many stupidvisors in 35 years who were high school dropouts….and it showed. also get rid of the nepotism……one family member period…..American Airlines has that policy and you don’t have the problems that come with that crap.
The USPS hasn’t made a pre funding payment since 2011. How is the prefunding part of the problem?
Here’s a better question. If the Postal Service is still losing money, and we haven’t made a payment recently, how is fixing the prefunding going to help? Its like saying, I am broke, but if I just file bankruptcy for all these bills I HAVE NOT been paying, then I’ll have money?
Carrier Chuck the prefunding again. the prefunding DID NOT END IN 2015! The law is still in effect. Perhaps if you saw the notice on the Fix news network you would believe it. Don’t care about the truth, it’s better to just make things up. It works well for our leader.
The Postal Business Model is broken, that is a given but there are other factors. Here are my thoughts on the subject and they do not favor any particular side so take them with a grain of salt.
* Executive Area Offices serve no real or practical function other than to micro-manage districts and pass on headquarters mandates. They should be eliminated, districts should be retooled to support local offices instead the numbers farming they do now to support the bonus system for area execs.
* Zip Code Zones need to be mapped to correctly better serve communities and eliminate overlaps causing over expenditures in mileage premiums to rural carriers. (Easy Fix but no one even wants to look at it)
* Carrier functions need to be re-tooled, Union loyalties centralized, and inspection functions simplified and measured independently. In other words we should not have City/Rural/Highway Contract carriers, we should just have carriers. Inspections should be independent or conducted locally, when upper management is involved they tend to be influenced by how much they can save to better impress their boss or garner a bigger bonus. Carriers are swayed by how much they can get their route cut, or what territory is easier. Neither are focused on how best to serve their patrons.
* Contracts. Whoever sold the Post Office down the river to give Amazon a better deal should be fired. All parcel prices need to be standardized for EVERYONE! The cost benefit of having two pallets dropped on a dock instead of going through the plants is not being realized in the additional staffing and cost of running on Sunday. The impact to morale, staffing and liability is decimating the bottom line.
These are only a couple of observations from a long term Postal Employee. I did no even delve into the politicians who have bought and sold facilities for pennies on the dollar for their own personal gain. There are a great many problems that plague the Postal Service and the only real way to fix it is to privatize as politicians and unions cannot be trusted but then that would hamper their mission. The question that should be asked, is that mission still relevant today?
If President Trump is using the Amazon/Postal Service pricing rates in a roundabout way to hurt Jeff Bezos he is barking up the wrong tree. The postal rates are small potatoes to a billionaire like Mr. Bezos.
What Mr. Trump needs to do is an anti-trust bust up of Mr. Bezos’s conglomerate and make Amazon a standalone business. With the razor thin margins in the retail sector Amazon would be out of business in a week. But Mr. Bezos has many revenue streams to draw from with billions in government contracts for is putting satellites into orbit and for his cloud services. This gives him a nice cushion of money that mom and pop stores don’t have making for very unfair competition.
Privatize , reform and streamline POSTAL MANAGEMENT NOW!!!!
Aw yes…… the pre funding topic again….. that ended in 2015.
Bernie Bernie Bernie. Give it up. The end of the Po as we know it
is over. The time has come before it blows itself up. Trumpie
bear is lurking.
Prefunding of pentimento money for the postal workers was another GOP ploy to hinder sound financial operation of our Postal Service, thereby prompting GOP’s effort to privatize another government function.
Allowing USPS to operate banking service makes sense because private banking service is not available to people with financial difficulties. USPS could offer it without preconditions. Japan has been using it as long as I can remember.
send this old commie on a second honeymoon……back to moscow again! sell this dump…..set the govt free!
Don’t agree with Bernie much but he is correct here on everything he said
Hey Bernie, what IS the solution? Maybe you and your rocket scientist girl Hillary can come up with the solution.
Bernie, you the man. How come the other government agencies and other employers in America aren’t required to prefund their health care costs? How much has the Presidents private co’s. paid in health care prefunding? How much did he prepay for Trump University? None you say. Why is that ? Every employer in America should prepay 75 years in advance! What does one expect from a fake President? Just grab the Vaseline.
I love getting stamps from zazzle . They should have Disney , birthday stamps etc in a vending machine in lobby for around 5 or so dollars extra . They have the worst selections of stamps . Zazzle has Casper , summer , Dr Sues etc