Post office hearing

[Fanatical Meat]

They operate at what an 8-10B annual loss. This is chump change in the grand scheme of things. You are right, change and modernization is likely in order. should we cut service to the little guy or cut bennifits from employees? Seems like the wrong approach to me as well.

I used to be of the mindset, why do mail carriers get a pension when equivalent private sector jobs haven't had them for decades. No I wonder why I want to screw over another low wage thankless worker.

exactly how I think today

 

[ivwshane]

The postal service should have been charged with providing internet service to the nation.

That’s a really good idea. If you think about it, it’s in-line with what their original duty is, the delivery of mail. I think we can expand that to be email.

Did you come up with this on your own or has it been floated before by someone?

 

[Moonbeam]

That’s a really good idea. If you think about it, it’s in-line with what their original duty is, the delivery of mail. I think we can expand that to be email.

Did you come up with this on your own or has it been floated before by someone?

This is an interesting read I just found trying to look up some data on when I may have first formed this opinion:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/04/27/founders-never-intended-postal-service-be-managed-like-business/

It's some history every citizen should read and suggests a mild version of what I said.

So to answer your question, I can't remember if I heard the idea elsewhere because I have thought this for a very long time. But I do have a special interest in the Postal Service and have been aware of the politics swirling around it and the threat to it from the right and from the loss of first class revenue due to email back to it's invention as well as News Bulletin boards catering to all manner of special interests and fields of study. I knew that the then US Post Office and what cheap well regulated internet could mean for the country private enterprise would do anything to prevent, that it would be a money cow for those who care first and foremost for themselves rather than the good of the nation. Greed is good. Ask Ronald Reagan or the Air Traffic Controllers Union.

 

[Steltek]

The annual operating loss is mostly due to a unique provision passed by Congress requiring that the Postal Service (unlike any other Federal governmental agency, independent or otherwise) has to prefund retiree health benefits.

While the rest of the government is allowed to let it slide and dump the costs off on future generations, USPS is instead made to pay upfront.

It worked before the Internet era, due to USPS's then first class mail monopoly. Now, not so much.

 

[zzyzxroad]

The annual operating loss is mostly due to a unique provision passed by Congress requiring that the Postal Service (unlike any other Federal governmental agency, independent or otherwise) has to prefund retiree health benefits.

While the rest of the government is allowed to let it slide and dump the costs off on future generations, USPS is instead made to pay upfront.

It worked before the Internet era, due to USPS's then first class mail monopoly. Now, not so much.

Exactly. We should have no issue subsidizing the loss considering the service the average person receives.

 

[Steltek]

Exactly. We should have no issue subsidizing the loss considering the service the average person receives.

The problem is magnified by the fact that USPS is the second largest governmental employer after the Department of Defense. If DOD was held to the same standard, it would quickly bankrupt the entire federal government.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Here's an interesting question one might conceivably ask one of those "20 mile dirt road" people.

"We (the USPS) think it would save the government money if we only delivered mail to you twice a week. Are you inclined to save the government money? Or do you want full service?"

I suppose you could have choice of service levels to local communities. Then again, there would be those within such communities who think full service is needed. But at some point, I suppose a majority of residents could have their way. This doesn't always work well for other types of public decisions, and we should think about the consequences.

But it's probably the best approach to stand firm on what USPS has given us for a hundred years or more -- in fact, almost 240 years, if I'm not mistaken, but easily 200.

Getting rid of sorting machines during a period of low demand is like throwing away surplus capital equipment that may be more useful in the future or at least redeployed elsewhere. Redeployment elsewhere would be a viable option for a business professional. Where did DeJoy plan to redeploy these assets already belonging to the USPS?

If there were a clear path to answer for that, I can see DeJoy facing some penalty, maybe jail time. I could be wrong. But it's not as though he had a plan to do something with the surplus -- is it?

See, that would be like deciding the Air Force had too many planes, so they'd better just cut some of them up or carted off to the airplane graveyard.

 

[Steltek]

Here's an interesting question one might conceivably ask one of those "20 mile dirt road" people.

"We (the USPS) think it would save the government money if we only delivered mail to you twice a week. Are you inclined to save the government money? Or do you want full service?"

I suppose you could have choice of service levels to local communities. Then again, there would be those within such communities who think full service is needed. But at some point, I suppose a majority of residents could have their way. This doesn't always work well for other types of public decisions, and we should think about the consequences.

But it's probably the best approach to stand firm on what USPS has given us for a hundred years or more -- in fact, almost 240 years, if I'm not mistaken, but easily 200.

Getting rid of sorting machines during a period of low demand is like throwing away surplus capital equipment that may be more useful in the future or at least redeployed elsewhere. Redeployment elsewhere would be a viable option for a business professional. Where did DeJoy plan to redeploy these assets already belonging to the USPS?

If there were a clear path to answer for that, I can see DeJoy facing some penalty, maybe jail time. I could be wrong. But it's not as though he had a plan to do something with the surplus -- is it?

See, that would be like deciding the Air Force had too many planes, so they'd better just cut some of them up or carted off to the airplane graveyard.

When was the last time that anybody in this administration had a plan? I'm sure that DeJoy's idea of a plan amounted to "redeploy them to a rat-filled warehouse somewhere where nobody can find them". Especially since USPS management reportedly tried to reinstall sorting machines in Dallas and couldn't do it because they couldn't find all the parts (I guess this was before he sent out the memo telling USPS management categorically NOT to reinstall any of the machines that had already been removed). Apparently, it is easy to loose something like that when you are an idiot...and we all know how much the great orange turd just luvs his idiots (until they annoy him, anyway).

 

[sportage]

I missed the tv hearing too except for catching a snippet on the news. And immediately I was hit with the impression, this guy is like 100% mob. He could be straight out of a Francis Ford Coppola film. If these guys surrounding Trump were any more mob-like I’d swear they had something to do with the hit on JFK. Assassination of an America president sounds just like something Roger Stone would do, and Roger Stone worked for Richard Nixon, and Richard Nixon lost to John Kennedy. Holy shet.... could this all be connected? And explain how America has become the America that America is today? Organize crime in control of the banks, the institutions, the politicians, the entire government, and it all began with the presidency of Richard Nixon?

 

[Steltek]

I missed the tv hearing too except for catching a snippet on the news. And immediately I was hit with the impression, this guy is like 100% mob. He could be straight out of a Francis Ford Coppola film. If these guys surrounding Trump were any more mob-like I’d swear they had something to do with the hit on JFK. Assassination of an America president sounds just like something Roger Stone would do, and Roger Stone worked for Richard Nixon, and Richard Nixon lost to John Kennedy. Holy shet.... could this all be connected? And explain how America has become the America that America is today? Organize crime in control of the banks, the institutions, the politicians, the entire government, and it all began with the presidency of Richard Nixon?

He is something worse than the mob - he is a typical government contractor (at least, the company he owns is, anyway). You know, the low-bid-then-cost-overrun-profiteer kind of guy.

 

[UNCjigga]

Looks like DeJoy at least partially lied to Congress on Friday—sounds like the House won’t be so forgiving. No wonder Trump wants the hearing moved. How awesome would it be if the RNC kicked off right after the Postmaster General was led away by the Sergeant at Arms?

New Postal Service Documents Show Nationwide Delays Far Worse Than Postal Service Has Acknowledged

Washington, D.C. (Aug. 22, 2020)—Today, Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney, the Chairwoman of the Committee on Oversight and Reform, released new internal Postal Service documents warning Postmaster General Louis DeJoy about steep declines and increasing delays nationwide over the last two months as a...

oversight.house.gov

 

[sdifox]

MC: I give you our keynote speaker, the Postmaster General!
<Aide whispers to MC>
MC: Regrettably our beloved Postmaster General has been invited to high tea with FBI. He will not be joining us today.

 

[woolfe9998]

Looks like DeJoy at least partially lied to Congress on Friday—sounds like the House won’t be so forgiving. No wonder Trump wants the hearing moved. How awesome would it be if the RNC kicked off right after the Postmaster General was led away by the Sergeant at Arms?

New Postal Service Documents Show Nationwide Delays Far Worse Than Postal Service Has Acknowledged

Washington, D.C. (Aug. 22, 2020)—Today, Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney, the Chairwoman of the Committee on Oversight and Reform, released new internal Postal Service documents warning Postmaster General Louis DeJoy about steep declines and increasing delays nationwide over the last two months as a...

oversight.house.gov

Your article isn't discussing DeJoy's testimony. It is that of the ranking Republican on the House Oversight Committee.

 

[conehead433]

I was troubled by DeJoy's response to the question of whether or not he had been asked by anyone in the administration to slow down mail delivery. He hemhawed around and stated that the Postal Service was committed to blah, blah, blah, and ended with saying the question was outrageous. But he didn't actually deny it. In a similar response to basically the same question he stated, "I have never spoken to the President about the Postal Service other than to congratulate me when I accepted the position." During the video clip of the first mentioned part here he had his head down and his eyes were blinking a hundred times a minute. Liar, liar, pants on fire.

 

[Thump553]

I'm still waiting to hear his explanation for tearing out million dollar sorting machines-destroying them according to several news stories-as a method of cost saving.

And shame (yet again) on numerous GOP legislators for claiming this is political grandstanding by the Dems. When are the voters going to get fed up with politicians not doing there job? PSA-remember EVERY member of the House is up for election this November. Time to clean house (literally).