Great Summation of Conservatism

Submitted by Cordelia Lear on Sat, 02/14/2015 - 8:17pm

Crooks and Liars ran a piece today about our Postal Service and efforts by outside organizations to keep it viable. It also contains much info about the roadblocks thrown at it by Congress in the last ten years, or so, that make it almost impossible to keep afloat.

I encourage you to read it, but even if you don’t there’s a great take-away quote which describes the modus operandi behind Paul Ryan and many of his fellow members of Congress perfectly:

The Conservative/Wall Street/1 Percent/Republican anti-government strategy is to set government up to fail (usually by starving it of funding). Then they point to the resulting "crisis" they created and say it proves that government doesn't work so we should "privatize" it – in other words, rig the system against We the People by handing our common wealth over to a few wealthy people to harvest for personal profit.

Let’s call it a wrap.

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Submitted by Big Al on Sat, 02/14/2015 - 8:58pm
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toward wealth inequality. Private companies pay their CEO's millions and their upper tiers of "executives" the big bucks while
reducing everybody else to a lower pay levels.
More is coming, both parties are going to agree to larger increases in defense and security spending, i.e., the end of sequester cuts, so they're going to have to
hit elsewhere.

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Submitted by Cordelia Lear on Sat, 02/14/2015 - 9:57pm
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to average worker has increased to absolute scurrilous proportions.

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Submitted by Unabashed Liberal on Sun, 02/15/2015 - 5:24am
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and his Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe would make former Chairman and CEO of General Electric, Jack Welch, look like a piker! (A bit of hyperbole, but not much.)

Wink

2015 -- New Postal Service Executive Team Chart.png

Seriously, Obama has been on board with cuts for several years--they've been proposed in his Budgets.

Postal Service Default: Postmaster General Pleads For Congressional Action As Bankruptcy Looms

. . . Arguing that the service suffers from a “restrictive business model,” Donahoe said that Congress needs to pass legislation that would make the independent agency more like “a private-sector business.”

[My words: Donahoe was appointed by Obama in 2010; just retired Feb 1, 2015. I'll have to check out his replacement.]

“We do not have the flexibility to achieve these cost reductions,” Donahoe said.

As part of those cost reductions, Donahoe said he would like to shed more than 100,000 postal workers who are now covered by no-layoff clauses in union contracts; move new employees from a defined-benefit plan to a lesser defined-contribution plan; and eliminate the service’s mandatory annual payment into employee health benefits.

The plan would also close around 300 of the postal service's 500 processing centers, shutter thousands of post offices around the country, and eliminate Saturday delivery.

Many of those actions would require a mandate from Congress.

Well, learn something every day. According to Wikipedia, Donahoe JUST retired.

Patrick R. Donahoe was the 73rd United States Postmaster General, having been appointed to the post on October 25, 2010.

A 35–year veteran of the Postal Service, he reported to the Postal Service Board of Governors. Prior to being Postmaster, Donahoe served as the 19th deputy postmaster general. He entered the Postal Service as a clerk in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.[1][2]

Donahoe is a 1977 graduate of the University of Pittsburgh where he majored in economics. He also graduated from the MIT Sloan School of Management where he was a Sloan Fellow.[3]

Donahoe retired on February 1, 2015 and Megan Brennan is his successor.

I went to get a Matt Bai piece that I always quote from on this subject, but I've run out of "free" pieces. I will post some of the excerpts in the first week of March. This is a VERY important issue, IMO.

Overall, though, it is a bipartisan "neoliberal" project, apparently endorsed by President Obama.

(Although there are some Democrats, and even a few Republicans against these measures.)

White House seeks cuts to USPS services in budget
By Bernie Becker - 03/04/14 07:08 PM EST

President Obama would allow the cash-strapped U.S. Postal Service to scrap Saturday delivery and delay some required healthcare payments, under proposals in the White House’s 2015 budget.

Obama’s previous budgets have had similar ideas for how to shore up USPS, which lost $5 billion in fiscal 2013.

But several of the proposals floated by Obama have also generally been embraced more by Republicans than Democrats and postal unions.

[In fairness, note the paragraph above.]

The White House budget would also allow USPS to move away from door-to-door delivery to more centralized delivery areas, an idea also panned by Democrats.

[Not sure what this means, but don't like the sound of it. Could it mean postal boxes for people living in more rural areas? Dunno. But will try to find out.]

Plus, USPS could keep a recent temporary increase in the price of stamps – which large mailers loathe – beyond the scheduled two years. . . .

Note: The piece above quoted last year's Budget.

I'll try to remember to post figures from Matt Bai's article reference the cuts Obama has proposed in various budgets.

IMO, we especially need to call the White House, and then all of our Democratic and Republican lawmakers.

Also, I think that we should try to press FSC and all the Presidential candidates of all parties, regarding their views on this issue.

Thanks for bringing this up, CL.

[We spend a lot of time in a University Town, not too terribly rural, but not a major city, either. Can't imagine that Mr M and I would lose our mail delivery to the door--but one never knows.]

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