Going, Going, Gone Postal

Dear Mr. President,

Section 8 of the Constitution states: “The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States…” It then lists a number of specific functions associated with this, including “To establish Post Offices…” Post Offices! Up there with coining money and declaring war. Unlike you or Congress, the Founding Fathers felt the Post Office important enough to the welfare of the country to declare it in the Constitution. Now, however, we’re told the Post Office is in crisis, bleeding red ink. Not true! The USPS is in good financial shape. The crisis we hear about was manufactured by Congress in 2006 when they passed a law mandating approximately $5.5 billion annual payments from 2007 to 2017 to fund retiree health care for the next 75 years! No other government agency is bound by a requirement like this. The law also prohibits the P.O. from reclaiming $11 billion overpaid into one of its pension funds and to further ensure the USPS goes into a death spiral, Congress choked off any possibility of new revenue by prohibiting competition with other businesses like banking or insurance as in many countries. The 2011 and 2012 $5.5 billion payments cannot be met says the P.O., although service will not be affected since revenue is enough to cover operating expenses but not the extra $5.5 billion. The Senate passed a bill to alleviate this self-inflicted wound but House Republicans have no interest in saving this national asset, so the Post Office plans to eliminate Saturday delivery, slow service, shut down half their processing centers and 3,600 post offices and lay off 200,000 employees. Talk about a job killer! It’s obvious that, even though the P.O. has not received direct taxpayer dollars in decades, the rightwingnuts want to kill off another service for the common good. In their fantasy, a privatized system of mail delivery will rise out of the ashes, a capitalist’s dream, a citizen’s nightmare. And where do you stand? As usual, more or less with them. Last September you “compromised”: cut service, cut jobs and raise rates but refund $6.9 billion of their overfunded pension money and spread retiree health funding out over a longer period to reduce annual payments. Not a word since. Are you poring over the list of post offices to close with the same dedication and intensity you give your weekly Kill Lists? Jill Stein for president!