Postal workers protest closures

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.omaha.com/article/20110918/NEWS01/110919729/-1#postal-workers-protest-closures

Published Sunday September 18, 2011

DES MOINES, Iowa — Postal workers from across Iowa converged on the state capital to protest plans to close 178 post offices and four processing centers.

Saturday’s protest in Des Moines came as the U.S. Postal Service considers ways to cut costs. The postal service lost $8.5 billion last year and is expected to lose $10 billion this year.

Larry Ginter, of Rhodes, has been a letter carrier for 26 years. He said that the closure of the Rhodes post office would put people out of work and force customers to travel miles to the nearest post office.

The processing centers at risk of closing are in Carroll, Cedar Rapids, Creston and Waterloo.

The closure of the Sioux City center is already in the works. — AP

[SlimJimmy]

1. Okay Steve. The USPS is losing about 10 billion a year. What would you recommend

to stop the bleeding? My view is that efficiencies alone, won't close the gap.

[Omaha Steve]

2. Stop the over funded pension payments passed by W!

First reply and it is correct: http://www.scpr.org/blogs/economy/2011/09/08/how-save-us-postal-service-proposal-post-bank/

There is one thing that has been driving the USPS to insolvency. A provision in the PAEA of 2006 that required the USPS to PREfund FUTURE retiree health benefits. This provision takes $5.5 Billion out of USPS revenue every year. If not for this requirement made by CONGRESS, the USPS would have actually had a profit of around $800 Million over the past 4 years. This $55 Billion fund is meant to ensure the funding for FUTURE retirees for the next 75 years. In essence, USPS is being required to put money aside for people who do not work for USPS yet and some that aren't even born yet. This fund was to be paid in only 10 years. There is no other business or organization anywhere that has to make such payments.

The USPS has also, due to a flaw in the formulas, OVER paid into the two pension funds by over $60 Billion. You can do the math here, and so can Congress. Congress will not talk about these over-payments or pre-funding requirements. They're too busy paying lip service to their constituents about keeping little bitty Post Offices open.

Cut out the PAEA funding and return the over-payments. Then, since there is already $23 Billion in that fund, USPS can take that $60 Billion and put $22 Billion into the future retiree health benefit fund, pay off the debt to the Treasury of $15 Billion and still have some left over for a rainy day.

But this is too simple for Congress to grasp.

The blame lies solely with your CONGRESS. If you really want to do something, contact your representative and senator and urge them to support H.R.1351 which will go very far in resolving the current problem and resolve the over-funding problem.

[SlimJimmy]

4. *My* Congress? I thought the Congress was everyones. You provided

a good explanation. You should have left it at that. I sure hope you won't be talking to prospective voters like that.

The blame lies solely with your CONGRESS.

[Omaha Steve]

6. Not my words

From the post at the link. :-)

[SlimJimmy]

7. Got it. Thanks for the clarification (nt)

[jwirr]

3. FedEx brought a package to my door yesterday and I wanted to ask

the driver if he was going to bring my mail every day when there was no post office. I wonder if when buying something by mail if you can ask for USPS instead of these other delivery services? I think I will give it a try.

[SlimJimmy]

5. I opt for USPS delivery when I can. Some companies allow you to choose, others don't.