What government agency is being targeted for extermination today? The finest postal system the world has ever seen: the U.S. Postal Service (USPS). Frankly, our USPS could have been—and, still can be—the only profitable agency in our entire Federal government if certain politicians and corporations would stop trying to kill it—cremating for good the nation’s biggest union inside it and using the rest of its remains to profit themselves.
One-by-one, our government agencies’ operations are being sold into private management. For example, the CCA, and, for-profit companies like it, operate 264 prisons for governments throughout the U.S. Our U.S. military routinely outsources to private companies like Blackwater and Halliburton, which, conveniently (and, most profitably) escapes the usual pesky regulations that would otherwise demand a stop to overspending and would require accountability for billions of taxpayer dollars lost. At the rate these fire-sales are going, what exactly will be left in our governments that America’s people can call their own?
The game plan for causing these fire sales is usually from the same playbook. Industry lobbyists convince politicians to squash Federal funding to the Feds’ own agencies and states. Under-funded agencies scramble for money while quickly falling into debt and disrepair. Corporations then suggest (even writing for our lawmakers) onerous laws and regulations to further impede an agency’s profitable and effective management. Much like what happened to the USPS, prevented by law to help itself, its future is then deemed bleak. Private industries’ eventually move in for the kill—another agency operation sold.
Presently, the American public is being told that our USPS cannot compete with today’s mail industries. Reasons for its demise are as varied as the sources reporting the news. Therefore, authorities reason, surely private industry and market competition can return the USPS to profitability! Not exactly. With corporate emphasis always on profit at all cost, the only benefits from any new postal schemes will favor for-profit only stockholders—not postal customer services.
Although the reasons for the USPSs demise and plans for its future are far more complicated than can be explained here, for anyone capable of reading between the lines, there are obviously dirty hands attached to this mess that can be easily found. For example, Congress's 2006 Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act was planned to drive the USPS into bankruptcy by requiring it to pay $5.5 billion a year for employee benefits 75 years into its future. Of course, these horrendous payments requested of the USPS (but, of no other government agency—or, private industry, for that matter)is then used as the government’s excuse for firing/downsizing postal workers and closing hundreds of facilities for cost containment. Prime post office sites are also being sold to pay USPS debts (real estate that suspiciously would otherwise not be available were it not for this manufactured crisis). Even as the USPS was obviously failing, our government curiously prevented it from restructuring or adapting itself (as any good business would) to meet the evolving needs of 21st century postal services. Authorities, presently ringing the USPSs death knell, are then ridiculously telling us that no one uses the post office anymore. Really? Then what accounts for the 2010 $12 BILLION paid to Fedex and others for outsourced mail transportation? Few people realize, our USPS receives no taxpayer money to operate. It always paid its own way by selling stamps!
Nothing about the present USPS crisis makes any sense to reasonable people. Frankly, all evidence points to this crisis being a manufactured emergency, created by stakeholders in the bulk mail industries (according to the usual corporate takeover game plan) that stand to gain a bigger piece of the mail industry pie—and—by politics, which, wants to finally and effectively bust the biggest union in our nation. With our corrupt politicians’ help, all the robber-barons involved in this fiasco just might have their way.
Unless Americans stop what’s happening to our post offices, the USPS (like other beloved American institutions) and its postal workers who provided us with decades of dedicated and reliable service, will be Americana gone forever.
The finest postal system the world has ever seen (yes, once a PROFITABLE government agency), and the postal workers who made that happen, deserve better! Whether or not America agrees and fights to save the best of their own remains to be seen.
For more information, please visit the website, SaveThePostOffice.com.