Donald Trump has been bashing, maligning, criticizing, and making blatantly false statements about the United States Postal Service for months now. He, however, might not be the first GOP member to attack the postal service in the never ending quest to make it a private enterprise (owned by a bunch of GOP members with some kind of inadequate and incompetent level of logistics experience). That honor goes to the GOP in general who came up with some very creative ways to make the USPS look bad. Aggresiously bad.
This is so odd considering the USPS enjoys a 91% approval rating with the American public. It delivers 47 – 49% of the WORLD’S mail to over 160 million locations in the United States alone. It has received $0, zero, zilch, nil, nothing – absolutely no government funding since 1982. It was, at one time, singularly, the one and only best employment place for blacks. As of April 1st, 2020, and supported by a TRUMP ADMINISTRATION AUDIT, when you remove the scam about to be discussed below, the USPS has been a profitable enterprise FOR DECADES.
So, let’s consider these few items: the United States military is a service. Correct? That is, tax payer money is used to fund their operations including benefits for their “employees”. We, the tax payers, really don’t actually see, smell, hear, touch nor taste the benefits of that particular service. But, we certainly do benefit by the protection it brings. It should be noted, there is really no, what so ever, revenue stream the United States military provides. The United States Postal Service is a service. Correct? That is, tax payer.. wait a minute – stop right there.
In 2006 a group of Senators and Congress folks, all who had logistic companies in their district and / or stock or other financial interests in United Parcel Service, FedEx, DHS, etc., came up with a scheme to make the USPS look horrendous and thus eliminate it. That scam was called the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006. In brief, it mandates the postal service PRE FUND it’s pension system. So, what does that mean? If your bank came to you and said, “Over the course of your life you will probably buy three cars and two houses. The average car is $40,000 and the average house is $400,000. Therefore, we are going to start charging you principal and interest on $920,000 now. Because, you’re going to do it in the future.” That’s exactly what this scam does. It projects pension benefits into the end of the century, an amount of roughly $335,000,000,000 (335 billion). That’s insane. That’s inappropriate considering no other branch of government has to fund itself. That’s a scam because on paper the USPS looks like a huge loser but take away this mandate and they flourish. That’s a crime because GOP members will benefit when they start up their own version of the USPS.
Then, to strangle the USPS even more, it is forced to put all of its funding into government bonds. You know, those extremely low yield, long term financial instruments.
So, to conclude, we now see the USPS is actually profiting, is actually an impressive revenue stream, and provides a great service that has been in existence SINCE BENJAMIN FRANKLIN in 1775 !!!!!!!! This continued attack, from a financial argument, against the USPS has no merit. For if you are to believe the GOP logic for privatization, then you need to privatize the military, the housing department, the energy department, the education department, the FBI, DEA, DHS, Justice Department, the Senate, Congress, etc etc. You know, all those agencies that DON’T have a revenue stream.
Kevin Driscoll 