The Cold, Hard Truth about the Post Office
American Thinker,
by
Kevin Cochrane
Original Article
Posted By: DVC,
8/22/2020 11:39:30 AM
Apparently, Congress doesn't have time to pass an economic stimulus package and save the American economy, but they do have time to address — in an emergency session no less — the Post Office. Yeah, yeah, we're being told that it's some deep plot to fiddle with the election by suppressing mail-in ballots, but why don't we look at the facts?
I do know a little about the Postal Service — my dad was a "letter carrier" for over thirty years. Back then, we called him a "mailman" because, well, he delivered mail, and he was man. But today...
Reply 1 - Posted by:
snakeoil 8/22/2020 12:28:32 PM (No. 517530)
Didn't realize it until I watched a documentary on Harry Truman but at one time the Post Office used to deliver mail twice a day. Am willing to concede that the USPS has made three improvements in my lifetime: 1. Forever Stamps which eliminate the need to buy a 2 cent stamp to cover the price increase in a 1st class stamp, 2. they now have adhesive on the back of the stamp and you don't have to put your tongue on the back of a stamp, and 3. they have a service that scans your mail and email you what you should get in the days mail. Many people now pay bills online which means no letter. Whenever possible I mail it in. When you pay online you usually have to create an account and give them your email which means more SPAM. Plus you can always claim it was lost in the mail. Lost in the internet doesn't work.
7 people like this.
Reply 2 - Posted by:
Chuzzles 8/22/2020 12:39:03 PM (No. 517545)
The USPS was supposed to be their scapegoat for November IMO. Trump wanting to make the PO more efficient is tinkering with their fraud scheme. Maybe Trump should tweet about how Obama removed 14K mailboxes from national use, and maybe Pelosi could explain how that happened. Funny how Congress never fixes anything, just continues to pour money down the rat hole of bureaucracy.
13 people like this.
Reply 3 - Posted by:
lakerman1 8/22/2020 12:45:31 PM (No. 517552)
I used to teach this stuff, so I will give you people a quick history lesson..
back around 1970, postal workers in the NY-NJ area went on an illegal strike over wages. They all should have been fired, just as President Reagan, in 1981, fired the air Traffic controllers for their illegal strike.
Instead, President Nixon and Congress created an independent postal Service, and gave full collective bargaining rights, including wages, to the postal employees, but strikes were not allowed. In place of strikes, the employees were given interest arbitration, where neutral third parties sat as arbitrators and wrote the labor agreements for the three bargaining units of employees. and the arbitrators were exceedingly generous, especially on benefits and work rules.
the quickest way for the Postal Service could stop the financial bleeding would be to eliminate Saturday delivery. But that would be subject to negotiations, eventually winding up in arbitration. and Congress would probably insert themselves into the equation.
15 people like this.
Reply 4 - Posted by:
red1066 8/22/2020 1:06:06 PM (No. 517572)
The post office has been losing money for decades. It stopped being good about the time Johnson was leaving office, and it sure as hell isn't the post office portrayed in the movie, "Miracle on 34th Street".
4 people like this.
Reply 5 - Posted by:
shalimar 8/22/2020 1:07:00 PM (No. 517575)
The Postal Service would be doing a lot better if it didn't have Congress micro-managing its business.
2 people like this.
Do away with Saturday deliveries, nobody gives a rat’s butt.
11 people like this.
Reply 7 - Posted by:
Flossie 8/22/2020 1:53:25 PM (No. 517634)
Let’s not forget about the millions it spent to sponsor Lance Armstrong’s cycling team.
4 people like this.
Reply 8 - Posted by:
or gate 8/22/2020 1:58:43 PM (No. 517641)
The post office has 10,000+- mail carriers.
They have +- 20,000 bosses that never delivered mail and just wanted a retirement job
10 people like this.
Reply 9 - Posted by:
wilarrbie 8/22/2020 2:04:23 PM (No. 517646)
This is a red herring! It's not the USPS (and dang those problematic date stamps). It will be the long and arduous checking for legitimacy against voter rolls that will be our nightmare.
8 people like this.
Reply 10 - Posted by:
GoodDeal 8/22/2020 2:45:09 PM (No. 517678)
It’s not the post office that’s the emergency it’s the theft of the election through fraudulent mail in voting that’s the real emergency. This is their big chance and they are not going to let it slip away.
5 people like this.
Reply 11 - Posted by:
jeffkinnh 8/22/2020 3:46:53 PM (No. 517707)
While the Post Office is an "independent postal Service" they are still under the thumb of the government. The workers receive excessive wages and benefits, including outsized retirement, like most public employees. Further, poor work practices are tolerated. Home many stories of postal deliveries in the trash or at workers home have we read? Are we surprised that the PO is inefficient? When is government EVER efficient? Further, they get away with the largess by deflating the price of services to hide the real costs. If they doubled the price of stamps the real costs would be exposed and they would lose even more business. Plus the Congress would go nuts over the increase. There is no need for them to be efficient, only to hide their true costs and get a government bailout from time to time.
Fine, give them a bailout. In return, cut benefits to pay back the same amount over 10 years. $10 billion bailout? $10 billion benefit cuts over 10 years. Further, raise prices to their true costs and cut employees to match the true volume of business.
1 person likes this.
Reply 12 - Posted by:
czechlist 8/22/2020 4:05:45 PM (No. 517724)
Article 1 Section 8 Clause 7 of the Constitution if the United States of America establishes post offices and post roads. At the time the US was sparsley populated, mostly rural with citizens having to travel miles by walking, horse, wagon, to vote. If the Founders had thought voting by mail was reasonable I believe they could and would have implemented and codified some form of mail voting. They obviously did not have convenience in mind and they likely feared potential fraud as well. I believe the Founders wanted voting to be a communal event, a gathering of neighbors.
5 people like this.
Reply 13 - Posted by:
marbles 8/22/2020 4:39:27 PM (No. 517745)
I like getting mail, actual touchable mail. I like sending real letters and cards. The connection to someone that has hand written a card or letter can never be replaced by a computer screen. As for vote by mail..it's ripe for cheating.. I'm from NJ, an election that took place in Paterson NJ is being done over.......hundreds of undelivered ballots and outright fraud.
2 people like this.
Reply 14 - Posted by:
Lonestar Jack 8/22/2020 4:42:55 PM (No. 517748)
Wake up people -- it is not about the delivery of the ballots that Trump is complaining about. It is the vast number of illegal ballots that are being printed, forged and submitted by the Pelosi crew. They will be tendered as legal votes and go unverified. That is easily done by the Dems with the help of China printing presses etc.
3 people like this.
Reply 15 - Posted by:
jjs 8/22/2020 7:12:08 PM (No. 517853)
Ask any young new hire at your work if they have mailed anything using stamps in their life time. Most can count the times on their hands, I assume they can count which is a whole different subject.
The post office is a social work program and that is all at this point.
0 people like this.
Reply 16 - Posted by:
Rivetjoint 8/22/2020 7:16:17 PM (No. 517855)
I've noticed that I rarely get mail on Mondays and the "letter carrier" is sometimes seen driving in the neighborhood as late as 6:45pm. We seem to get mail perhaps two or three times a week. I have to agree with others who urge ending Saturday deliveries. Perhaps there is some sort of perk for favored employees who do Saturdays.
0 people like this.
Maybe twenty years ago, I spent a Saturday afternoon reading the diary of a Union solder I stumbled upon online. What was the most impressive thing I read? As this soldier went down south and back up north, he received his paychecks and mail in three days by steamboat and pony express.
I mailed a birthday gift July 9th to go 18 miles. It arrived Aug 21st. And only after I called.
Maybe we should go back to the pony express. Maybe Nasty Nancy should stay out of it.
1 person likes this.
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And, once again, when we look at the facts, we discover that Nutty, Nasty Nancy's lunatic rantings on the USPS are unhinged from reality, counterfactual and just more political lies.
Two key points:
First, the USPS mail volume decreased by 8% BUT, they hired 10,000 additional employees.
Second, the USPS has not been paying into the employee retirement plan for almost a decade. So much for that excuse on why they lose money.