I so rarely send letters that I always have to go rooting around in a drawer to find the cache of Forever stamps I bought I can’t remember how many years ago. Good thing I have them since stamp prices are going up again next year. Combine that with crap like this that makes you want to do everything online, it’s no wonder people get pissed:
When Chris opened a letter from the Indiana Election Division, he was curious why in the world there would be a small Styrofoam cube inside the envelope. Luckily for everyone involved, there was an explanation.
Written on a strip of paper packed with the letter was the following declaration:
The Styrofoam cube enclosed in this envelope is being included by the sender to meet a United States Postal Service regulation. This regulation requires a first class letter or flat using the Delivery or Signature Confirmation service to become a parcel and that it “is in a box or, if not in a box, is more than 3/4 of an inch thick at its thickest point.” The cube has no other purpose and may be disposed of upon opening this correspondence.
Holly Crap! The post office is not loosing money!!!!!
Congress requires that the USPS fund both the retirement program and the health plan at 100%. The average for the S&P 500 funding is 80%. Other federal employees is 41%; the military is 24%; and the some government bureau which requires the USPS to fund at 100% does not fund its plans at all.
Due to the usual government accounting standards, requirements and regulations, the USPS believes that they have over-funded the plans by $75 billion and they want it back. The amount of $75 billion is equal to a year’s income at the USPS.
The is not a current method to pay back over-payments. The only way the USPS can be paid back is by an act of Congress.
The money paid into these plans is invested in Treasury Notes, Bonds, and Bills – in other words, the federal government “borrows it.”
And then they spend it.
Should the $75 billion be paid back and the funding requirements be reduced, the USPS would be in better shape. If they were required to fund the plans at a lesser rate, they would be in better shape.
The big problem with returning the $75 billion to the USPS is, because of the rules Congress has created, giving the money back would increase the deficit by $75 billion. Over the years, the Federal Government has made the deficit look better by subtracting the funded pension and health plan money from the deficit numbers. Not many Congressman are willing to add numbers to the deficit right now.
The House postal oversight subcommittee approved H.R. 5746. The bill, which was introduced by Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-MA) on July 15, would alter the methodology for allocating the Postal Service’s share of pension costs for employees whose careers spanned the former Post Office Department and the USPS which created the $75 billion in question. This is the first step in a long process to make the changes that the USPS wants.
The bill must be considered by the full Oversight and Government Reform Committee before it can be voted on in the House. And since the house is Republican they will never vote yes to correct this error because they want mayhem and the destruction of government agencies to promote privatization or corporatization of government services.
So you think there is no problem with government pensions, or or that matter corporate pensions, that would recommend fully funding them?
There are 27 comments? Where are the other 25? Okay, so I’m naive. But if there are replies to a comment, shouldn’t it state at the top of the comment, “There are are n replies to this comment”? Clicking on that informative little statement would take one to the comments.
Whatever. So do it your way. Keep ‘em hidden. Aren’t you clever.
Yes lets privatize, so mailing a letter from one end of your block to the other costs $31.
Exactly!
Their media manipulation and misinformation has been so masterfully done that virtually no one realizes the American tragedy that is taking place, right in plain sight. Almost no media coverage, no discussion or truthful information has been forthcoming. Not even the postal workers seem to be aware of the true magnitude of what is happening. To most of them it’s just a living wage job, but in reality, for all Americans and our children’s children, it is about the destruction and looting of a great country, from within. Every tangible object bought or sold on the Internet has to be shipped. Without shipping the Internet is only half an entity and would be nearly worthless, except for information and communication.
Happening now is a well orchestrated power play to eliminate a sleeping USPS from the trillion dollar internet shipping business, and sell America down the drain.
The United States Postal Service posses the largest shipping infrastructure on earth. It is tax exempt and is non profit. No other shipper can compete with the Post Office, so they have used lobbyists and our own lawmakers to destroy the USPS. They are now in the process of selling off the infrastructure today and in the coming months. The Post Office can and has generated massive revenues for our treasury. It’s more than just stealing trillions of dollars from the public again.
Ben Franklin, the first Postmaster General couldn’t see the Internet coming but he and others were insightful enough to realize that we have the right to a free flow of correspondence and conveyance of materials without profiteers and possibly even foreign entities having any control over it. We can’t let the USPS be turned into a junk mail delivery service while some corporations force the liquidation of real estate and equipment that took the American people more than 200 years to amass. Our USPS is a big part of what has made and continues to make America great.