100 signatures reached
To: Rep. Justin Amash (MI-3), Sen. Debbie Stabenow (MI-1), and Sen. Gary Peters (MI-2)
END THE PRE-FUNDING OF RETIREE BENEFITS IN THE USPS
The US Postal Service is the only business or government agency required to prefund their retiree benefits 75 years in advance at a cost of $5.5 billion dollars a year for a 10 year period. This needs to stop immediately. It is bankrupting a 235 year old quasi government/quasi business. The financial problems of the postal service are a "smoke and mirrors" manufactured crisis by Congress and the media. The postal service is not broken and does not need to be fixed. It simply needs the tweaking of laws that place restrictions on it from competing.
Why is this important?
I'm signing this petition because the Postal Service has and can again be a services paid for by it's customers organization rather than a drain on taxpayer funds. The pre funding of retiree benefits is simply a means toward two ends.
1. Congress "borrowing" (steeling is more like it) money wherever it can like it did with Social Security.
2. Create an artificial failure so as to say "see, government is incapable of doing anything right and we should therefore "PRIVATIZE" mail service." Who will protect the sanctity and security the mail from theft and fraud? The companies that make billions at the citizen's expense?
The Post Office Department (1792-1971) was created as one of the few government agencies explicitly authorized by the United States Constitution. The Postal Reorganization Act birthed the United States Postal Service on August 12, 1970. It replaced the cabinet-level Post Office Department on July 1, 1971.
To enable the Post Office Department to serve all Americans, no matter how remote, yet still finance its operations largely from its revenue, Congress gave the Department a monopoly over the carriage of letter-mail by a group of federal laws known as the Private Express Statutes. Without such protection, Congress reckoned that private companies would siphon off high-profit delivery routes, leaving only money-losing routes to the Department, which then would be forced to rely on tax-payers to continue operations.
1. Congress "borrowing" (steeling is more like it) money wherever it can like it did with Social Security.
2. Create an artificial failure so as to say "see, government is incapable of doing anything right and we should therefore "PRIVATIZE" mail service." Who will protect the sanctity and security the mail from theft and fraud? The companies that make billions at the citizen's expense?
The Post Office Department (1792-1971) was created as one of the few government agencies explicitly authorized by the United States Constitution. The Postal Reorganization Act birthed the United States Postal Service on August 12, 1970. It replaced the cabinet-level Post Office Department on July 1, 1971.
To enable the Post Office Department to serve all Americans, no matter how remote, yet still finance its operations largely from its revenue, Congress gave the Department a monopoly over the carriage of letter-mail by a group of federal laws known as the Private Express Statutes. Without such protection, Congress reckoned that private companies would siphon off high-profit delivery routes, leaving only money-losing routes to the Department, which then would be forced to rely on tax-payers to continue operations.