It's All Your Money: Taxpayers may be on hook for US Postal Service losses

[WillowTree]

The U.S. Postal Service is often the butt of jokes, but there's nothing funny about the agency's bottom line.
The USPS is losing up to $25 million dollars a day. Until now, taxpayers have not been on the hook for its mounting losses, but that could be about to change. A bailout recently approved by the Senate would appropriate $34 billion in federal money.
TAXPAYER CALCULATOR: Postal Service overhaul

"If the post office was a business, it would be in bankruptcy," said Rep. Dennis Ross, R-Fla. "It's insolvent.


Read more: It's All Your Money: Taxpayers may be on hook for US Postal Service losses | Fox News












They just need to get out of business and let a private enterprize do what they cannot seem to do.

 

[Old Rocks]

Faux news. What else is one to expect. Nothing at all about the killer rule concerning the health care that Bush and boys put in there to sink the Postal Service, right?

 

[Dot Com]

ANOTHER Fox News story from Willow? Gee..... thanks willow

 

[LogikAndReazon]

The effeciency of civil servant bureaucrats is never to be over stated............

Who cares how inept or costly it is...............Its the Postal Service !!! lol

 

[Artevelde]

Does anybody actually have a reason for keeping something so outdated as a governmental postal office in operation?

 

[kiwiman127]

Well this is interesting:

Twisted government accounting behind Postal Service woes

There's a long and a short story to the tragic tale of Postal Service financial trouble. I'll start with the short one. Right now, the Postal Service is being forced to pre-pay health benefits for the next 75 years during a 10-year stretch. In the past four years, those prepayments have totaled $21 billion. The agency's deficit during that time is about $20 billion. Remove these crazy pre-payments — a requirement that no other government agency endures and no private industry would even consider — and the Postal Service would be in the black.
Red Tape - Twisted government accounting behind Postal Service woes

Funny how that fact hasn't been brought up.

 

[eflatminor]

Regardless of why the PO is in the financial shape it it, I think we need to continually ask ourselves if a government-provided service would be better accomplished through the free market. A good argument can be made for a PO in the early days of the country, which is why the framers included a PO in the enumerated powers. Now that we have extensive infrastructure, an advanced economy and alternative technologies, I believe the time has come to phase out the PO and let private business deliver the mail. This of course would mean competition, innovation and downward pressure on shipping costs...a good thing for the country. Therefore, I support a Constitutional amendment phasing out the PO.

 

[Artevelde]

Regardless of why the PO is in the financial shape it it, I think we need to continually ask ourselves if a government-provided service would be better accomplished through the free market. A good argument can be made for a PO in the early days of the country, which is why the framers included a PO in the enumerated powers. Now that we have extensive infrastructure, an advanced economy and alternative technologies, I believe the time has come to phase out the PO and let private business deliver the mail. This of course would mean competition, innovation and downward pressure on shipping costs...a good thing for the country. Therefore, I support a Constitutional amendment phasing out the PO.

I agree, completely.

 

[Mr. Shaman]

Well this is interesting:

Twisted government accounting behind Postal Service woes

Funny how that fact hasn't been brought up.

....Or, what Republicans are willing to.....

....IGNORE.

 

[RoadVirus]

The USPS needs to be either gutted and rebuilt from the ground up or gotten rid of.

I still think it has some usefulness, it just needs seriously reformed. Union pensions and other benefits need to be re-negotiated so they don't cost so much and maybe some facilities closed.

 

[Truthmatters]

http://www.usmessageboard.com/the-f...for-the-party-that-wants-to-end-your-job.html


ask Harry dresden.

he wants his job eliminated

 

[Truthmatters]

why does the right hate a government entity that the founders SO supported?

 

[Papageorgio]

why does the right hate a government entity that the founders SO supported?

So you either have to love it or hate it. That is my issue with partisan nut jobs, no I between, no logic, just pure emotion.

 

[Truthmatters]

why do you defend the raping of the post office by the past republican congress?

 

[healthmyths]

Faux news. What else is one to expect. Nothing at all about the killer rule concerning the health care that Bush and boys put in there to sink the Postal Service, right?

"The Postal Service receives no tax dollars for operating expenses, and relies on the sale of postage, products and services to fund its operations."
http:
It's a practice called "standby time," and it has existed for years — but postal employees say it was rarely used until this year. Now, postal officials say, the agency is averaging about 45,000 hours of standby time every week — the equivalent of having 1,125 full-time employees sitting idle, at a cost of more than $50 million per year.
http://www.federaltimes.com/article/20090907/DEPARTMENTS02/909070306/1026/DEPARTMENTS02

Because of the American Postal Workers Union!

(Meanwhile the U.S. Postal Services debt:$ 12 billion to the guess who??

Federal Financing Bank (FFB), a government-owned corporation under the general supervision of the Secretary of the Treasury, provide the Postal Service revolving credit lines of $4 billion!
[URL="http://www.usps.com/financials/anrpt10/ar2010_finance_4_029.htm"]http://www.usps.com/financials/anrpt10/ar2010_finance_4_029.htm

The Federal Financing Bank (FFB) is a government corporation, created by Congress in 1973 under the general supervision of the Secretary of the Treasury.
The FFB was established to centralize and reduce the cost of federal borrowing, as well as federally-assisted borrowing from the public.
The FFB was also established to deal with federal budget management issues which occurred when off-budget financing flooded the government securities market with offers of a variety of government-backed securities that were competing with Treasury securities.
Today the FFB has statutory authority to purchase any obligation issued, sold, or guaranteed by a federal agency to ensure that fully guaranteed obligations are financed efficiently.
Federal Financing Bank


SO the Treasury is financed BY TAX REVENUES.
TAX REVENUES finance FFB!
FFB loans USPO $12 billion!
The Federal Financing Bank (FFB) has $30.5 billion in holdings, according to a fact sheet released by CQ Today.

 

[saveliberty]

So four day delivery would save $50 million a week. Let's get started.

 

[Claudette]

Well this is interesting:

Twisted government accounting behind Postal Service woes

There's a long and a short story to the tragic tale of Postal Service financial trouble. I'll start with the short one. Right now, the Postal Service is being forced to pre-pay health benefits for the next 75 years during a 10-year stretch. In the past four years, those prepayments have totaled $21 billion. The agency's deficit during that time is about $20 billion. Remove these crazy pre-payments — a requirement that no other government agency endures and no private industry would even consider — and the Postal Service would be in the black.
Red Tape - Twisted government accounting behind Postal Service woes

Funny how that fact hasn't been brought up.

I had read that somewhere. Wonder why none of the Clowns in DC want to get rid of that ridiculous pre payemnt amount. The PO would be in the black without it.

 

[saveliberty]

why do you defend the raping of the post office by the past republican congress?

Ask anyone working at the post office. Its the internet stoopid.

 

[Navy1960]

Article I, Section 8, Clause 7 of the United States Constitution, known as the Postal Clause or the Postal Power, empowers Congress "To establish Post Offices and post Roads".

While the post office does have it's problems, it does seem that rather than getting rid of the Post Office, it would make more sense given the fact that UPS and FED-EX do not have a traditional mail service or cover a lot of rural areas that depend on this service it would make more sense for Congress to exercise it's powers under the Constitution to actually fix the problem. As a thought here, one would think that USPS would and could contract a lot of its package delivery to the above mentioned companies reducing costs with little impact and leave open traditional Post Offices . I for one would never be in favor if simply saying the best solution is to get rid of something because we are unable to or unwilling to fix it.

 

[saveliberty]

USPS makes money on package delivery Navy1960. In fact, they contract with FedEx to move a lot of it around. UPS didn't give them as good a deal. USPS is also cheaper in many cases, so you might want to rethink your suggestion.