The United States Postal Service (USPS) is in trouble right now, and making headlines right now as it faces a crisis. It has been losing a great deal of money for many years now. To be precise, it has been losing a hell of a lot of money for almost a decade and a half. But keep this in mind: there is a very specific and obvious reason for all of this, which I will get to in a few moments. Frankly, you can make the argument that the problems that it faces were, in fact, not of it’s own making, and may have been designed to get the USPS into serious trouble.
Of course, things are bad seemingly all over the country, and indeed all over the world right now. After all, we are in the midst of a global pandemic, tens of millions of jobs have been lost, and tens of millions of Americans have filed for unemployment in recent weeks.
As John Oliver points out:
"At the worst possible time, this American institution is on the brink of collapse."
The problems that the USPS faces right now were basically engineered, to almost make sure that it failed. Indeed, there has been a growing clamor against the postal service for many years now. There are commercials out there blasting the USPS, and there was even a shot against the postal service in a major movie, which I actually love. It is “Cast Away”, the movie where Tom Hanks plays a man stranded all by himself in a purely solo, 21st century version of Robinson Crusoe. Great movie, and there are some comedic moments. But I remember feeling it was a bit weird that it was taking shots at the USPS.
Yet, that rather cruel portrayal in Cast Away came years before a law was passed by Congress that seriously hurt the USPS, and possibly permanently crippled it.
How have things gotten so bad for the USPS? I mean, right now, things are really bad, and it feels like the USPS may be forced to do things that it was never designed to do. We have to ask ourselves why.
We have a dumb, historically selfish and incompetent president currently in the White House, actively taking shots at the USPS. He recently called it a “joke” and suggested that it needed to raise prices for deliveries, even though, in fact, the USPS is not free to raise it’s prices. As John Oliver explains in the video below, it’s hands are tied.
So, what is this one thing that I alluded to, but did not outright mention, which has hurt the USPS so badly?
It is the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act, which was passed by Congress back in 2006, shortly after then President George W. Bush proudly hailed the dawn of what he called the “Ownership Society” in the United States, trying to give an ideological validity to what amounts to selfishness, and the rush to deregulation and privatization that this storm of collective selfishness that this spawned.
What exactly did the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act do, precisely? Why exactly did it hurt the USPS so badly?
Here, according to a recent article about John Oliver getting involved to help the USPS out, is a summary of the unreasonable conditions that the USPS was forced to meet as a result of this act of Congress:
The law requires the USPS to pre-pay healthcare benefits for retirees on a 50-year schedule, starting with an "aggressive obligation" of setting aside over $5 billion a year for 10 years. The law also put price caps on first-class mail, liming the Postal Service's ability to bring in more money.
How much did it impact the USPS?
Well, the USPS reported an income of $900 million in 2006. It was a profitable institution, and a more affordable as well as a usually more convenient alternative to FedEX and UPS, and any other delivery services. But shortly after this law came into effect, all of that changed. By 2009, just three years after the act was passed, the USPS reported a net loss of $3.8 billion in 2009. Obviously, it hurt the USPS, but to judge the USPS as somehow incompetent since, when it clearly is trying to drag the anchor that Congress attached to it, is not merely unfair, but outright hypocritical. This is exactly the kind of overregulation ploy slapped onto a public institution meant to benefit the public that those in favor of deregulation and increased privatization claimed to fear with private institutions.
In other words, it feels like this was done by design, specifically to make the USPS fail. Perhaps it was meant to benefit other delivery services, or to attack a popular and clearly visible element of the government. Probably, it was a bit of both.
But make no mistake. This was an attack on something that the general public has benefited from for a very long time now. The Post Office Department, which changed forms and names, but ultimately became the United States Postal Service officially in 1970, has been a successful government institution for many, many decades, even well over a century. And trust me, as a stamp collector myself, the proof is there. There are postal service issued stamps dating back well over a century and a half ago. It has lasted all that time, and as mentioned earlier, it was raking in significant profits as recently as 2006, when that cursed law was passed by Congress – a Congress then dominated by Republicans, who also held the White House and the Supreme Court at the time, and which was decidedly supportive of Bush’s “Ownership Society.”
Oliver suggested some possible solutions, declaring the the USPS could easily take on further responsibilities . This includes possibly hunting and fishing licenses. But the one idea that he also mentioned as probably the best possible solution, and which has been an idea that has been floating around for quite some time now, is for the USPS to offer banking services. As Oliver points out, they were already providing these services up until the 1960’s, and in fact had the nation’s largest banking services.
No wonder the advocates for increased privatization have it in for the United States Postal Service.
Frankly, I think that I would be interested in getting an account with the USPS if they offered it.
We really should be concerned about this, because the USPS is an institution that deserves to be preserved, to be saved from the flavor of the moment desire for further privatization, which has already done irreparable harm to this country now.
Let us make sure that the USPS, which has been an absolute benefit to the people of this country, does not become yet it’s latest victim.
Please take a look at the John Oliver video below, where he elaborates on this situation, as well as the related article, which you can access by clicking on the link below:
John Oliver Launches Branded Stamps to Support U.S. Postal Service by Kimberly Nordyke, May 10, 2020:
No comments:
Post a Comment