SCAM: “Privatize the Post Office” -- Facts about Post Office Profitability

Article I, Section 8, Clause 7 of the United States Constitution, known as the Postal Clause or the Postal Power, empowers Congress "To establish Post Offices and post Roads". The Postal Clause has gives Congress the enumerated power to designate mail routes and construct or designate post offices, with the implied authority to carry, deliver, and regulate the mails of the United States as a whole.

The transparent purpose of this PAEA law, which was pushed heavily by industry lobbyists, was to break a public sector union and privatize the mail industry. [Despite the fact that the aBefore the 2006 act, the postal service did one thing, did it well, and, minus the need to generate profits and bonuses for executives, did it cheaply. It paid for itself and was not a burden to taxpayers. Post offices also have a huge non-financial impact: In a lot of small towns, the post office is the town, and shutting them down will basically remove the only casual meeting place for people in mountain areas and remote farming villages and so on. Of course, there's always one Wal-Mart for every dozen or so post offices, so people I guess can drive the extra twenty miles and meet there ...

This is a classic example of private-sector lobbyists using the government to protect its profits and keep prices inflated. Sen. Sanders is pushing a bill that would delay the end of Saturday delivery for two years, and prevent a number of post-office closings, but the writing is on the wall, unless there's a public outcry. So definitely write your congressman and ask him to roll back Bush's idiotic law, and at least give the Post Office a chance to sink or swim on its own.

USPS made $9.5 Billion profit from 2003-2006! PAEA law passed in 2006 requires prepayment to fund for health benefits for future retirees. 10 year plan 2007-2016. About $5.5 Billion required each year. This is a manufactured crisis via a poison pill. The current $44 Billion in fund has enough to pay benefits for 20 years. A well designed attempt to privatize, sorry, I mean PROFITIZE, the mail. First kill it, then take all the lucrative parts away. Bottom line, the losses from 2007-2010 are around $20B, but the prepayments were around $21B, so the USPS is operationally PROFITABLE. Artificial handicap is killing us. No reason to fully fund that account by 2016. That is akin to starving your family to pay off a 30 year mortgage in just 10 years. I am retiring in 2038, so my retired health benefits will NOT be required in 2016. Pensions. This is a separate issue. USPS has two types, defined benefit and defined contribution. People hired before 1984 are CSRS, and newer hires are under the FERS system. CSRS is pension, with no social security. FERS is smaller pension, social security contributions taken out, and benefits eligible, plus a 401k type instrument called TSP.

The CSRS fund is OVER funded by about $50-75 Billion, with a balance of $200 Billion. Depending on if you believe the OIG or PRC. The OPM miscalculated, but won't fully admit it. The FERS fund is OVER funded by about $11.5 Billion, with a balance of $75 Billion. So you can see the USPS has been BAILING out the Federal government for some time now. Any credit for these over payments WOULD NOT be a tax payer bailout, and the funds could go directly to the prefunding of retiree health benefits, raising THAT fund from the current estimated balance of $44 Billion mentioned earlier to the 2016 goal of over $70 Billion, also eliminating the remaining 5 annual payments of $5.5 Billion I wrote about earlier.

Commments:The USPS has reduced employee totals from 820,000 in 2000 to around 550,000 through attrition. I predict that in 2020, the USPS will have 425,000 employees. So employee totals have been drawn down through attrition FASTER than mail volume declines, but that is rarely mentioned.

The fact that 80% of the USPS $70 Billion in annual revenues goes to salary and benefits is NOT out of line. We are a service industry. We make nothing. What should that percentage be?? I think it is too low. It is also misleading as only 54% of revenue goes towards pay and benefits of employees who actually TOUCH the mail. Maybe if we owned an airline like FedEX, we could get that number down to 37%. USPS forecasts they will lose $238 Billion by 2020? Really?? The USPS has NEVER lost more than $9 Billion in a single year, and have a $15 Billion debt ceiling. Pray tell, how will they be able to lose $30 Billion per year the next eight years. . Finally (for now), the USPS says 80% of post offices are losing money. That is low. It's more like 92%. The reason is that revenue is credited at the point of entry, so large plants get all the credit, and small offices that actually deliver it DO NOT get the credit for delivering it. The smallest, rural 10,000 post offices cost the $70 Billion dollar organization LESS than $1 Billion per year. If you shut them all down, rural America will suffer unduly. Closing Post Offices because they lose money is illegal. The United States Postal Service is obligated (and proud) to provide UNIVERSAL service nationwide. http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/dont-let-business-lobbyists-kill-the-post-office-20120423

... The postal service does not take any tax payers money to run its operations and they provide the most cost efficient post in the world. They also handle fifty percent of the worlds mail and do so with pride. The postal service is also responsible for a Trillion dollars worth of industry, nearly nine million people make their livings tied to the postal service. So if you would like to save your communities and care about your neighbors maybe think of the global impact that crippling the postal service, would have on our Nation. Only those individuals with limited scope of understanding are in favor of downsizing our Postal Service,,,,, Whether one agrees that small-town Post Offices are necessary for a sense of community, or whether the processing and delivery of paper is good for the environment, the dismantling of the Postal Service is driven by the same anti-worker and anti-union forces that took over the government during the Bush presidency. In spite of declining volume, the Postal Service would be solvent were it not for the pre-funding mandate. Congress sought to milk the cash cow that was the Postal Service, so it is forced to reduce services and further alienate the American public. Postal workers are not the problem--the corporate mailing industry and ideologically right-wing politicians are. Demand that the Senate absolve the Postal Service of the pre-funding mandate and preserve all postal facilities and services.