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Post Office is unfairly painted as inefficient and draining
Aug. 30, 2011 -- Letters to editors written by letter carrier activists have recently been published in local newspapers.
Buffalo-Western New York Branch 3 President Robert J, McLennan's letter to the editor of The Buffalo News was published Aug. 26.
Post Office is unfairly painted as inefficient and draining
Updated: August 26, 2011, 6:35 AM [link]
The anti-Postal Service propaganda continues to appear in the media declaring that the USPS is broke and the only answer is to dismantle this public service mandated by our national constitution. Close post offices, cut 100,000 employees, reduce service to the public; that’s their solution to this manufactured crisis. The American people are being bamboozled. The right-wing keeps repeating The Big Lie over and over, hoping they can continue to hoodwink the public into believing the Postal Service is terminally ill.
The truth is that no federal tax dollars fund the Postal Service; however the federal government is skimming the Post Office’s money right off the top. The USPS has been set up to fail, and when the trouble starts, they blame the employees and the unions. The USPS has overpaid $75 billion into the federal retirement fund. This has been confirmed by the Postal Regulatory Commission and the Office of Inspector General. We are also forced to pay over $5 billion per year to prefund retiree health benefits 75 years in advance, something no other agency or company has to do. The USPS is not asking for any kind of “bailout” and doesn’t need a bailout! If it were not for this financial scam, the USPS would have made money in three of the past four years.
Legislation has been introduced to correct this discrepancy, HR 1351, and it has already been co-sponsored by Reps. Brian Higgins, Louise Slaughter and Kathleen Hochul. The USPS will remain the most efficient and least expensive postal service in the world if we can stop carrying the federal government on our backs.
Robert J. McLennan
President, Branch 3 National Association of Letter Carriers |
Kevin Byrne, a member of West Palm Beach, FL Branch 1690 and a congressional district liaison, had his letter to the the editor published in the Sunday, Aug. 28 edition of The Palm Beach Post.
Letters: Postal Service OK if it could tap pension surplus
By LETTERS TO THE EDITOR FOR SUNDAY, AUG. 28
Posted: 7:38 p.m. Friday, Aug. 26, 2011 [link]
It's time to clear the air. As I'm sure you've heard, the Postal Service is in trouble ("Post office wants to cut jobs by 20 percent"). While that is true, the real cause is not what you may be hearing.
The Postal Service doesn't use a dime of taxpayer money. It hasn't for more than a quarter-century. We are incorrectly hearing that the Postal Service is going broke due to email and the Internet. The truth is the Postal Service is still bringing in $67 billion a year, and the mail industry is a trillion-dollar-a-year business. The problem lies elsewhere.
In 2006, Congress mandated that the Postal Service pay future retiree health benefits for the next 75 years, and do so within a decade. We are funding this benefit for employees who haven't been hired or even born. Here's the solution: Let the Postal Service use funds from its pension surpluses to make these payments. According to two independent studies, the Postal Service has overfunded the Civil Service Retirement Fund and the Federal Employee Retirement Fund collectively by between $60 billion and $80 billion. Allow us to transfer these funds into the Health Benefit Fund.
It would be smart business, and would leave pensions and retiree health benefits fully funded well into the future. All this talk about a bailout is not true. The money is there. Until Congress addresses this issue, letter carriers will continue serving local communities with the same dedication that has led the entire country to name us the most-trusted federal workers six years in a row.
KEVIN J. BYRNE
Port St. Lucie
Editor's note: Kevin J. Byrne is the Stuart, Fla., Congressional District Liaison, 16th District National Association of Letter Carriers, NALC Branch 1690. |
Byrne also had a letter to the editor posted to TCPalm.com on Aug. 30
Letter: Giving Postal Service flexibility on benefits fund would help it financially
It's time to clear the air. As I'm sure you've all been hearing, the Postal Service is in trouble. While that is true, the real cause is not what you may be hearing.
Let me say first that the Postal Service doesn't use a dime of taxpayer money. In fact, it hasn't for more than a quarter-century. We are incorrectly hearing that it is going broke, due to email and the Internet. The truth is the Postal Service is still bringing in $67 billion a year, and the mail industry is a trillion-dollar-a-year business.
The problem lies elsewhere: In 2006 Congress mandated that the USPS pay future retiree health benefits for the next 75 years, and do so within a decade. We are funding this for employees who haven't been hired or even born yet.
Here's the solution: Let the Postal Service use funds from its pension surpluses to make these payments. According to two independent studies, the Postal Service has overfunded the Civil Service Retirement Fund and the Federal Employee Retirement Fund collectively by between $60 billion and $80 billion.
Allow us to transfer these funds into the health benefit fund. It would be smart business and would leave pensions and retiree health benefits fully funded well into the future.
When you hear all this talk about a bailout, it is simply not true. The money is already there. Until Congress addresses this pre-funding, letter carriers will continue serving local communities with the same dedication that has led the entire country to name us the most-trusted federal workers six years in a row.
Letter carrier Kevin J. Byrne is congressional district liaison for the 16th District National Association of Letter Carriers, Branch 1690 |
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