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The Truth About the US Postal Service
What does 50 cents buy these days? Not a cuppa joe, a pack of gum or a newspaper. But you can get a steal of deal for a 50-cent piece: a first-class stamp. Plus a nickel in change.
Each day, six days a week, letter carriers traverse 4 million miles toting an average of 563 million pieces of mail, reaching the very doorsteps of our individual homes and workplaces in every single community in America. From the gated enclaves and penthouses of the uber-wealthy to the inner-city ghettos and rural colonias of America's poorest families, the U.S. Postal Service literally delivers. All for 45 cents. The USPS is an unmatched bargain, a civic treasure, a genuine public good that links all people and communities into one nation.
So, naturally, it must be destroyed.
For the past several months, the laissez-fairyland blogosphere, assorted corporate front groups, a howling pack of congressional right-wingers and a bunch of lazy mass media sources have been pounding out a steadily rising drumbeat to warn that our postal service faces impending doom. It's "broke," they exclaim; USPS "nears collapse"; it's "a full-blown financial crisis!"
These gloomsayers claim the national mail agency is bogged down with too many overpaid workers and costly brick-and-mortar facilities, so it can't keep up with the instant messaging of Internet services and such nimble corporate competitors as FedEx. Thus, say these contrivers of their own conventional wisdom, the Postal Service is unprofitable and is costing taxpayers billions of dollars a year in losses. Wrong.
Since 1971, the postal service has not taken a dime from taxpayers. All of its operations — including the remarkable convenience of 32,000 local post offices — are paid for by peddling stamps and other products.
The privatizers squawk that USPS has gone some $13 billion in the hole during the past four years — a private corporation would go broke with that record! (Actually, private corporations tend to go to Washington rather than go broke, getting taxpayer bailouts to cover their losses.) The Postal Service is NOT broke. Indeed, in those four years of loudly deplored "losses," the service actually produced a $700 million operational profit (despite the worst economy since the Great Depression).
What's going on here? Right-wing sabotage of USPS financing, that's what.
In 2006, the Bush White House and Congress whacked the post office with the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act — an incredible piece of ugliness requiring the agency to PRE-PAY the health care benefits not only of current employees, but also of all employees who'll retire during the next 75 years. Yes, that includes employees who're not yet born!
No other agency and no corporation has to do this. Worse, this ridiculous law demands that USPS fully fund this seven-decade burden by 2016. Imagine the shrieks of outrage if Congress tried to slap FedEx or other private firms with such an onerous requirement.
This politically motivated mandate is costing the Postal Service $5.5 billion a year — money taken right out of postage revenue that could be going to services. That's the real source of the "financial crisis" squeezing America's post offices.
In addition, due to a 40-year-old accounting error, the federal Office of Personnel Management has overcharged the post office by as much as $80 billion for payments into the Civil Service Retirement System. This means that USPS has had billions of its sales dollars erroneously diverted into the treasury. Restore the agency's access to its own postage money, and the impending "collapse" goes away.
The post office is more than a bunch of buildings — it's a community center and, for many towns, an essential part of the local identity, as well as a tangible link to the rest of the nation. As former Sen. Jennings Randolph poignantly observed, "When the local post office is closed, the flag comes down." The corporatizer crowd doesn't grasp that going after this particular government program is messing with the human connection and genuine affection that it engenders.
America's postal service is a true public service, a grassroots people's asset that has even more potential than we're presently tapping to serve the democratic ideal of the common good. Why the hell would we let an elite of small-minded profiteers, ranting ideologues and their political hirelings drop-kick this jewel through the goal posts of corporate greed? This is not a fight merely to save 32,000 post offices and the middle-class jobs they provide — but to advance the BIG IDEA of America itself, the bold, historic notion that "yes, we can" create a society in which we're all in it together.
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132 Comments so far
Show AllI took a good bit of offense to that myself... I'll be 29 this year, and I greatly prefer USPS to its private counterparts. I receive packages via all three carriers, usually depending on the shipper's preference (as it costs me the least per instance). That being said, if I ship, it's USPS, as I know where the hell to find them. Our FedEx/Kinkos/etc... has moved FOUR times in the past 10 years, and I'm sick and tired of tracking them down.
They're cheaper on SOME but not all packages. In fact I've usually gone FedEx simply because they offer true tracking of packages while the USPS to this very damn day says not a damn thing about a package even after having paid for "notification" about where in the hell it might be. Now explain that crap to me?! Amazon, because of its volume, passes the value of shipments from their bulk centers to its customers but the USPS sure as hell doesn't give YOU that break when sending cookies, or other potentially fragile and life threatening materials, to your old Aunt Emma. That's because USPS gives these whale customers, and all large third class bulk mail senders, the breaks and that's where they make a ton of loot. Without all that crap mail being sent the cost of ordinary post cards and letters would skyrocket and the inevitable decline in sending letters would continue and the cycle would repeat over and over. And everyone knows where that will end up. You can't have cheap ordinary mail and at the same time expect the junk to disappear.
You are blaming the post office instead of the people who are sending you unsolicited mail.
This "steal my identity" nonsense is a talking point suddenly being repeated all over the Internet.
It's amazing that, with all your public appearances, fierce protection of your electric dog-polisher patent, running your multiple businesses, checking your mailbox for junk mail, and posting on Common Dreams, you still have time to bake the best peccary pie in all of Lompoc!
I love this post. I keep coming back to read and savor it again. Thanks.
Stop having the mail delivered to your house. Get a PO box or use pseudonyms or other entities to protect yourself as much as possible. No reason to let all your laundry air out in public.
To blame the USPS, a common carrier that, like any other common carrier cannot legally dictate what it carries for it its fees except in the case of dangerous materials, for junk mail is positively the most stupid and idiotic thing I've ever heard. Only a USAn could think this way.
You never send or recieve any packages? I've found the USPS service to be better, and cheaper, than UPS or the union-busting Fed-Ex.
In my experience USPS "service" is dictated by the local branch. Go to a big city and everything is updated and probably real nice. However once you get out of the city into the suburbs USPS is horrible. I've found USPS to be awful with deliveries: Not picking items up on time, their tracking information on their site is never correct, 5 to 7 days really means less than 15 days, if your package reaches its destination at all. I don't know about your local office but mine in Colorado is filled full of incompetent individuals using dated technology to provide you with little to no answers. The only thing they can do at my local post office is turn buying stamps into an hour long test of your sanity.
Have you tried filing a complaint with the local Postmaster? I've found mine very open to citizens concerns.
I have worked for years helping small farmers set up fresh produce shipments. Thousands of packages go out every day all from rural post offices.
What you are saying is simply not true. Since you are also repeating the "steal my identity" and "too much junk mail" talking points that are suddenly so popular around the Internet, I am suspicious about what you are claiming here.
How nostalgic. The USPS is a joke. Everytime I have to go there, which is only thankfully a handful of times of year, the line is ridiculously long, and the employees are slow, uncaring and rude. I have had them lose multiple packages of mine, some of which were sent certified mail, and it is a nightmare to deal with them to track them down -- they just don't care. I will not buy from online merchants that only ship USPS. Also, I note frequently that when there is an option to choose between USPS and private carriers when shopping on line -- the private carriers 2 or 3 day air option is often considerable cheaper than USPS regular delivery. The only need for the USPS is to deliver to rural communities that are not served by private carriers.
I completely agree. The USPS has not adapted to the times and is a horrible service. They currently are a federally funded spam relay service, delivering realistically 95% garbage to peoples homes everyday. Their service is horrible, their shipping of packages is horrible, and I refuse to use them when possible. I completely forgot to mention in my previous posts that like you me and most people I know will not buy from online merchants that only ship via USPS.
That must explain why USPS package services is BOOMING though not enough to overtake the decline in first class mail. USPS delivers the others' packages throughout the non urban areas and quite alot in the urbanized areas as well. I am sorry that your experience(s) has/have been "horrible", but that is not the case in general, not by a long shot.
Sorry again, but I also have to point out that there is no federal funding for a spam relay service "whatever you mean by that". As pjd412 correctly states, above, the USPS does not control who mails what.
you also seem to have forgotten that there are, in fact, poor people living among us. But I'm glad everyone here can easily afford a bank account, credit card, internet and phone service, and that all those products work so well for you, and even if there were a monopoly that's be ok too. Stupid poor people, bring us down.
What I mean by spam relay service is that based on my yearly mail 99.9% of all of my USPS mail goes either straight into the garbage or into the shredder. To me and many others its a completely useless service forced on us that we'd gladly pay not to use. Like i said in my previous post Amazon prime cost $50 a year which is essentially a premium to get "free" 2nd day air/next day delivery which is completed by UPS/Fedex. Unless you are in a remote location where delivery is passed off to USPS. No doubt that the USPS has to handle UPS/Fedex delivery for many remote locations, however many of us pay gladly a premium to not have to deal with the USPS.
What are you talking about? There's nothing "forced" on you. If you're not mailing anything, you're not PAYING anything. So, what exactly is your beef? Perhaps UPS/FedEx will send you a little check for your sponsorship....and if they do, you'll receive it through USPS.
Ok try canceling your mail or not having a mailbox. If it was up to me I would not have a mailbox and prevent USPS from entering my property. Only problem with that is, the United States Government requires you to have a mailing address accessible to USPS, or resulting non communication can result in fines/arrests/etc. How would I be informed if I am being audited by the IRS, or get notice of a traffic ticket if I run through a red light camera. Federal and State government requires a mailing address for all residents or anything requiring state/federal registration. The offices of the United States Government are forced to use the same outdated broken USPS system for communication because its mandated. I can't believe you asked that question.
LOL. MANY houses do not have a mailbox. MANY people do not have a "mailing address". I can't believe you made that statement.
Then those people obviously don't drive, vote, own a gun, or pay taxes if their primary address does not have a mailbox or persons with an arrangement with the postmaster to pick up their mail. If you are talking about secondary property (ie my cabin the in woods near Wolf Creek Colorado) then yes I don't have a mailbox. However I would be required notify the postmaster to my location and either arrange a pick up of mail or put a mailbox up accessible to USPS if I was listing it as my primary residence, since you cannot use P.O. boxes as a residence location. You can still use a P.O. box for business addresses however you still have to provide a primary address for the business/LLC in order to officially register it. I'm was honestly surprised that you asked this question however you are either very young and nieve or never owned multiple properties or run a business inside the U.S and have no clue what you're talking about.
Unless there is some Colorado law stating that you must have a mailbox, the truth is , NO you do not. Noone is REQUIRED to notify (a) Postmaster of their location under any circumstance. It's YOU who hasn't a clue as to what he is talking about.
There is NO requirement to have a mailbox in order to get a drivers license, open a bank account, etc. Where would you even get an idea like that. Perhaps you have confused the term physical address with mailbox?
As to the question (above), you still haven't answered it. If you never purchase any postage, etc/ from a post office, then you haven't contributed ANYTHING to the postal service, regardless of you having received any deliveries to your mailbox, or not. The question therefore was and is~ what is your problem with it? (And I won't even bother to call you naive, too young, too old, whatever.) Peace out.
I think you are hung up on the term "mailbox". I don't have a mailbox in front of my house we have a community secured mailbox in my neighborhood. What I am saying is that in order to register anything you need an address to have mail sent by USPS, or notify a postmaster you will pick up USPS mail for your location in order to register anything state/federal car/home purchase/utilities/gun/voting/taxes/etc. etc.. Basically you have to have an address in order to receive mail to either physical or held mail at the postoffice. Also try opening a bank account without a verified address. Either way you are always going to get mail from USPS be it completely useless garbage or not and there is no way out of it is my problem. There is no way to cancel USPS.
I never get any junk mail to speak of, and never have for 50 years. Blame the commercial outfits that are selling your address, not the post office.
This is one of the most absurd things I have ever heard. I have never heard anyone complain that they are being persecuted by the post office LOL.
I have to agree since I decided to go credit cardless, I get very little junk mail. When I had credit cards and banked at BofA I got all kinds o it.
... Basically you have to have an address in order to receive mail to either physical or held mail at the postoffice.....
Also, an e-mail address. It's a virtual virtual necessity.
Whenever YOU purchase something from anyone. And whether they like to claim it's "free" ( which usually means the shipping is buried withing the price of the item ), or you clearly PAY the shipping, YOU are PAYING and "contributing" to the post office every time something is delivered by them. So whenever you or someone else elects to use the USPS there is a "contribution" going into their kitty.
I'm guessing you or someone in your family is/was a postal worker. Out of the major carriers USPS/Fedex/UPS/DHL I happen to like UPS and Fedex based on years of service. I happen to no care for DHL given 2 issues I've had, and loathe USPS after about a thousand issues and a neighborhood brought together solely based off everyone getting everyone else's mail. If a better service comes along I'll use that. If Fedex and UPS want to send me a check ironically over USPS I'd gladly take it, but most likely it would be lost, stolen, or mis delivered to one of my neighbors.
Absolute nonsense.
I'd have to disagree. I get great service through the post office. I can print labels online, and carrier picks them up if they aren't too large. I can track packages online. I think they've adapted very well. The people at my post office are pleasant and helpful. Yes the lines are sometime long, but then their staffing has been cut in half.
We are hearing the same talking points again and again.
I love my local PO and have had more good experiences there than bad. And I ALWAYS enjoy getting a letter or greeting card. I will trash an online greeting card, hate them, total laziness on the part of the sender.
It might be useful to explore exactly who is it that wants to privatize the Post Office.
Mr. Hightower cites some vague groups and the blogosphere, but let me point out that I don't see anyone actually calling for this. It's background noise.
Most people know that our puppet rulers work for the .01%.
Let's see a private company deliver a letter from small town Maine to Hawaii for 45 cents.
I'd also like to unprivatize the internet. Cable, and eventually internet providers, used to be part of the community commons like the public library. I would love for the post office to restart their bank, as well as internet service. Even better, I'd love to have the post office, and the library, and a goverment/non-profit resource center right next to each other, in every community.
These are good ideas, dustinchicago. I appreciate the mindset and hope that it spreads.
In my town that's how it's always been. Maybe not right next door but within a block of each other. And the upstairs floor of the Post Office used to house the county extension offices and military recruiters, but they've either been dismantled (extension offices) or moved into posher digs (recruiters).
For all of you who are bashing the USPS for its many problems, you need to re-read Hightower's original story. All of the problems that you list are real. And they all are the result of massive raids upon USPS revenues.
First, the US Treasury Department stole $80 BILLION from the USPS with an "accounting error" that pushed postal revenues into general revenues.
Second, the USPS is required to PREPAY pension liabilities going forward SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS. No other organization in the US, public or private, is expected to do that.
The postal "financial crisis" is about as real as the Social Security "financial crisis" -- nothing more than an ideological attack on a successful public endeavor, i.e. successful socialism.
Furthermore, the postal cash cow has been being milked dry way before that $5.5B per year extraction known as the "Postal Enhancement and Accountability Act" started up in the mid 90s. The USPS has been the source of monies for ALL federal retirement programs, the USPS funds the majority of the OWCP (payments to injured at work) budget. The FEGHB program will go bust if the postal service withdraws. As the lynchpin of the $1T (that's trillion) mailing industry, there will be a whole lot of private jobs that go away as well as the postal ones - welcome back skyrocketing Unemployment Rates, welcome back because at best you have only been stabilized, good bye to the Sanctity of the Mail Statutes, no more privacy for you! The others all ready high rates will be able to go SKY HIGH, and they still won't deliver to you outside of the urbanized areas.
tj, you are right; this is yet another wilful destruction of ANYTHING that even slightly smacks of successful "socialism".
Civic treasure? What a boatload of poo that with the USPS you can't even get brought to your home on Sunday. My mailbox is a repository for junk mail, bee hives and is an excellent place to steal my ID. I am not even going to go into the environmental waste (gas and trees) associated with getting that junk mail. The only time UPS or FedEx comes to my home is when I requested something. No junk and no unnecessary visits and Sunday service. Yes we must preserve this USPS treasure.
Is this "steal my ID" a new talking point? Suddenly that is being posted all over the Internet. "We must destroy the post office so people don't steal my ID!"
Must be going out in the weekly republican propaganda emailings. Or maybe it's a Limbaugh line.
The pattern is always the same. Several brand new usernames, all repeating the latest talking points.
Yeah, I smell "sock puppet".
Find any consumer protection agency that doesn’t recommend shredding credit card offers. Or those blank checks that you can use against you credit card or home equity line of credit. Would you accept your bank leaving the night deposit box unlocked for anyone to access? So while you guys obviously are in favor of the USPS regardless of the amount of “common sense” placed before you try to rise above your personal feelings and see the greater good for everyone. And once you’re done digesting that, we can talk about the harm to the environment. You do care about clean air, fossil fuels effects and global warming don’t you? If anything I said is incorrect or inaccurate please point me to some references. And while I certainly don’t listen to Limbaugh I would have to agree with him on this if that is what he is saying. Even a broke clock is right twice a day.
You have provided the rationale for shutting fown UPS and FedEx; unnecessary duplication of the Postal Service's routes (the profitable ones, that is) vs, universal service. Gee, thanks!
How can you possibly come to that conclusion? USPS coming to my house 6 days a week to bring me items I did not request is the the only unnecessary duplication that is occurring. UPS and FedEx only come when I request it. They don't just come by everyday to see if I need to send anything either. I am sure USPS could fix there flaws but when your system of control is the government well the issues with the USPS is what you get. FedEx and UPS succeed because they public companies are not subject of the government and stuck in the political quagmire. I suspect that if USPS were allowed to break its government shackles and go free the you might see an actual turnaround.
Many people do not get any junk mail at all. If you are getting junk mail, then blame the companies sending you this unsolicited mail. Call them and tell them to stop. After all, according to you, private companies should be much more responsive than government agencies. Right?
Busted. Your argument contradicts itself.
But previously you claimed that it was the environmental impact you were concerned about. If that is actually true, then the solution to that is to stop subsidizing junk mail. That would mean moving away from the for-profit privatization approach. Yet you are for the for-profit privatization approach when you favorably compare FedEx and UPS to USPS.
Busted. Again, your argument contradicts itself.
I guess the buzz you are trying to create is turning out to be not so friendly after all.
You need to be more careful about to whom you give your address. I am, and I don't get any junk mail.
Your junk mail is coming from private companies. Get it? Call those companies and complain and ask to get off their mailing lists and find out just how responsive those private companies are to your complaints. While you are sitting on hold, keep repeating to yourself "private companies do it better, private companies do it better."
Now, let's look at the ultimate irony and examine the hypocrisy in your argument. The privatization movement is founded upon a couple of ideas, silly as they may be. First, the absurd notion that private companies serve the public better than public agencies do. Secondly, the "welfare" argument - "we taxpayers are supporting services for those who don't deserve them!!"
We often hear "people need to take personal responsibility!" from the privatization folks, and "the government should not be restricting us!" and "people should not look to the government to solve their problems!"
Yet here we have you failing to take personal responsibility for your own personal junk mail problem, and whining and expecting someone else to solve it for you. Here we have you complaining about what unrestricted private companies are doing to you - sending you junk mail. Here we have you expecting the government to solve your problem by eliminating mail service for other more responsible people, simply because you are not able to manage your own life.
YOU are costing all of US money because you refuse to act responsibly, because of your interactions with private firms and failure to fight back against unsolicited junk mail, because of those private firms not giving a rat's ass about the public welfare or the environment. Yet you want all of us to believe that your problems, caused by private firms and your irresponsibility, are actually the fault of a public agency and you want us all to suffer because of your self-inflicted problems?
Sort through the heap of smoking ruins that was once your clever and cute little argument and see if you can find anything there that you can salvage and hold that up and wave it at us now. Go ahead.
You have not presented any "common sense" and the arguments for retaining the postal service are solid and have not been refuted by anyone on this thread. None of the defenses of the postal service have anything to do with "personal feelings."
Tampering with the mail is a serious crime and is vigorously pursued.
Junk mail does not originate with the postal service. Eliminating junk mail does not require eliminating the postal service. Your "clean air, fossil fuels effects and global warming" are red herrings.
You have got to be kidding me right? You have done nothing more than dance around actual issues that exist. Clever words like red herring and serious crimes do not address these issues and are cowardice responses. Here is some facts for you and this is dated:
http://web.epa.ohio.gov/opp/consumer/junkmail.html
Each year, 100 million trees are used to produce junk mail;
250,000 homes could be heated with one day's supply of junk mail; and
Americans receive almost 4 million tons of junk mail every year.
http://www.41pounds.org/impact/
An average of 41 pounds of junk mail is sent to every adult citizen each year.
Approximately 44% of this mail goes into a landfill unopened.
USPS 219.000 fleet vehicles consuming 1.7 billion in gasoline in 2007 gas was about $1.25 so were almost 4 times that today
http://www.consumerenergyreport.com/2009/03/24/exploring-fuel-alternatives-for-the-largest-civilian-fleet-the-usps/
Red Herrings indeed!
You see, it is simply not credible that someone could sincerely be as worked up as you are about these issues and then think that getting rid of the post office is the solution.
Yes, the junk mail argument is a red herring. Eliminating junk mail has nothing to do with eliminating postal service.
A Red Herring is a fallacy in which an irrelevant topic is presented in order to divert attention from the original issue. The basic idea is to "win" an argument by leading attention away from the argument and to another topic. This sort of "reasoning" has the following form:
Topic A is under discussion.
Topic B is introduced under the guise of being relevant to topic A (when topic B is actually not relevant to topic A).
Topic A is abandoned.
Topic A is saving the post office. Topic B is "but what about the environmental costs of junk mail??"
Great article. The battle of the 1% vs. 99% really is coming to a head in America. Once everything is privatized and nothing exists of the people, by the people and for the people, in one generation we'll have forgotten what it was like to be free.
The Romney's of the world want nothing less than total domination and complete market saturation. What will they do once they achieve it?
What will be left to conquer and subjugate?
The outside world hopes that the U.S.A. much like the Soviet Union, will eventually devolve into the collection of ramshackle petty fiefdoms that it essentially is, with the bonus of not even leaving a medium power national state like Russia behind.
The destruction of the national post office service can only assist bring this about.