You can describe the US Postal Service as hand delivering mail to every household for everyone in the nation's 3.7 million square miles overnight or in a few days ... for less than 50-cents.
You can make the argument that the US Postal Service binds the nation together at the most fundamental level as it touches more Americans than any other federal government agency and ensures that any American can contact any other American ... and We the People can contact our government and our government can contact each of us at any time.
You might note that the USPS does not cost taxpayers any money at all: Not a penny. The US Postal Service operates independently and usually earns a profit ... even at the basic first class letter rate under 50-cents.
US Postal Service has been semi-independent for 30 years; it's not a governmental department like it had been since Benjamin Franklin was appointed our first Postmaster General by the Continental Congress in 1775.
You might note that Franklin was quite the businessman but recognized and dedicated himself to building a nationwide postal service. Before building the US Postal Service, Ben Franklin had been the Philadelphia postmaster and then the Postmaster General for the Crown.
You might note that during good economic times we don't think much about the USPS unless our letter or package arrives later than expected, when we run into someone you know at the post office, and at Christmas. During bad economic times, postal businesses and politicians target the Postal Service for privatization.
Oh, the post office gets no respect, Rodney.
This time around, the politicians have pressured the US Postal Service and scared We the People when Congress passed and President Bush signed a The Postal Accountability & Enhancement Act that:
(a) requires the Postal Service to fund the next 75 years of estimated pension payments within a 10 year period. That over-funding amounts to about $5 billion annually. The US Postal Service has 10 years to pay for 75 years of estimated pension.
(b) limits the US Postal Service rate increases to the Consumer Price Index percentage and NOT the competitive process of balancing increasing costs versus the price patrons are willing to pay ... the free market economic concept
(c) limits the US Postal Service debt.
That law enacted in 2006 set up a pincer strategy that forces the current debate on whether to privatize the US Postal Service or let the post office die ... or remove the pincer so We the People can count on the US Post Office to go on serving and binding us.
Note that the US Postal Service posted its 13th straight quarter of increased productivity, and these continual improvements in productivity balance most of the USPS loss in revenue, such as in 2012 when mail quantities were down 5% year-to-year and first class letters have been declining approximately 7% per year.
So the USPS lost $4.8 billion on $81 billion in total operating expenses in 2012 due to fewer mailings handled. BUT the USPS lost an additional $11.1 billion purely to pay into the its Congressional mandate to fund 75 years of future pensions in just 10 years. That's the hammer. Limiting price hikes and limiting operational borrowing are the anvil.
During the worst recession, since the 1930's Great Depression, the US Postal Service lost 5% in total units processed and $5 billion in accounting loss per year. I'd say that their doing pretty well in surviving this recession and increasing productivity, especially considering that packages, overnight express, and business mailings are expected to go down during a recession.
But the USPS cannot survive the pincer law, Postal Accountability & Enhancement Act, passed by Congress and signed by President Bush in 2006.
Benjamin Franklin took on Postmaster General from his experience as a publisher who was constantly looking for getting his own publications to his readers throughout the American Colonies -- safely, consistently, timely, and less expensively.
Benjamin Franklin bound Americans together throughout the land through his own publications as well as the published words of Patrick Henry, Thomas Paine, and other Founding Fathers.
So, most likely, our Founding Fathers would raising a ruckus over the Postal Accountability & Enhancement Act of 2006. They would say this is an American devolution!
Our Founding Fathers saw a US Postal Service as so important to the ability for government to stay connected at all times to We the People that they enshrined it in the United States Constitution, that specifically states in Article 8 the Congress shall have the power "To establish post offices and post roads". For example, U.S. Route 1 has also been called "Old Post Road".
Economically, US Postal Service has been an engine of American growth and prosperity as well as political, social, and personal connection.
The drive by industry to develop further and further west needed, at first, The Pony Express, and then the railroads "mail by rail" connecting local businesses to each other and their customers. Then, USPS provided the connection infrastructure that allowed small businesses to grow and operate as regional and, later, national companies.
Personally, I remember as a kid my first letter carrier. His name was Jack. He pushed mail bags saddled on a 3-wheel cart. And, most important at the time, Jack handed out Fruit Striped chewing gum to all of us kids. (I liked green the most.)
I also remember writing letters to Superman, Batman, Green Hornet, and Santa Claus. Don't you? I remember writing thank you notes and the privacy of writing letters to girlfriend, colleagues, and family.
We all have Postal Service stories ... good and bad.
When you get your mail, don't you first recognize, and open, the handwritten ones? Letter writing will return in force as the communications and privacy pendulum swings back into balance.
If it doesn't, then those of us who love to receive and write letters, small notes, and cards will continue to do so even if the price of first class stamps rises to a full 50-cents, even to 75-cents or a dollar. What a bargain!
Benjamin Franklin, Patrick Henry, and Thomas Paine were smart businessmen and effective politicians.
They would have seen clearly that the Postal Accountability & Enhancement Act was a political time bomb planted for the benefit campaign supporters who see the opportunity to make a lot of money and by plutocrats who want to further weaken the United States as a We the People government.
I believe that this tug of war on what kind of nation we want to be, between democrats and plutocrats, is natural and best debated in public. I'm for democracy and against plutocracy.
I believe that private businesses, such as DHL, UPS, and FedEx, naturally would push for a privatized or outsourced US Postal Service. But that too should be publicly debated. I'm for keeping the US Postal Service we've got and opposed to privatizing or outsourcing it.
Raise your pens and voices for repealing the Postal Accountability & Enhancement Act. Send a handwritten letter to your Senators, Representative, and the President. Mail letters-to-the-editor to all newspapers you read.
By Steven J. Reichenstein
No comments:
Post a Comment