Look For A Mail Slowdown

I was reading about his resignation letter the other day. He basically blames the unions for numerous problems.

Even fdr was against govt public unions... arguing that the citizenry has no position in the negotiations but is held hostage. The big issues now are the calls to downsize the service and the unions are fighting back with subversive tactics such as the staples deal.

If the PO didn't have to make enough money to fund future retirement and benefits now, it would be a money making business for all involved

Oh noes... those poor public servants being forced to fully fund their retirement liabilities... the horrors.

Why can't they just have an enormous unfunded liability that falls on the tax payers like everybody else does?

It sucks to be accountable comrades.

by PkrBum Today at 6:05 am
Oh noes... those poor public servants being forced to fully fund their retirement liabilities... the horrors.

Why can't they just have an enormous unfunded liability that falls on the tax payers like everybody else does?

It sucks to be accountable comrades
----
Most businesses have the same issues. That's why ups and FedEx cost way more than the PO.

http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2013/03/04/how-the-postal-service-is-being-gutted.aspx

Read PKR--- no business anywhere pre funds 75 years of pension and 15 years of healthcare and can operate in the black. It's almost as if Congress wants it to fail. Hmmm wonder why?

http://www.cnbc.com/id/45018432

House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) sent off a series of questions on the pre-funding controversy to the Congressional Research Service to get to the bottom of the question: is pre-funding the reason for the USPS fiscal woes?

C-Suite Insider has exclusively obtained the CRS Memorandum on Postal Service Retiree Health Issue to Chairman Issa as well as an email explaining in further detail their findings. Below is a verbatim email correspondence between the CRS and Chairman Issa's office on the prefunding of 75 years of retiree health care benefits in just 10 years.

"The confusion over 75 years may be due to an "accounting" and not an "actuarial or funding" issue. They only have to fund the future liability of their current or former workforce. This would include some actuarial estimate about the mortality rates of their current workers (I.e. how long they live). So a 25 year old worker would have an average life expectancy (from birth) of 78.7 years. Thus, they would have to project future retiree health benefits for this individual up to about 54 years in the future. But for accounting purposes they must estimate the future liability over a 75 year period (according to OPM financial accounting guidelines). In this case, they would make some assumptions about new entrants into the workforce and addresses your second question. Theoretically, these new entrants could include someone who is not born yet. While they have to account for these future liabilities on their financial statements they do not have to fund them if they are not related to their current or former workforce."

Based on the findings of this memorandum, I asked Chairman Issa what his message is to the US Postal Service Unions who say Congress is to be blamed for this crisis.

Chairman Issa: Union leaders must understand that there is no easy fix to a crisis created by declining mail revenues. The often non-existent accounting issues unions want to talk about don’t address fundamental changes to delivery created by the growth of the Internet. Union leaders need to work with, not against, Congress on postal reform, because the alternative is a possible shut-down of the Postal Service next summer.

LL: The Postal unions are urging Congress to allow the Postal Service to stop making these prefunding payments. What would happen?

Chairman Issa: The Postal Service's unfunded liabilities will soar to around $100 billion by the end of the decade. This will reverse hard-won progress. The unfunded obligations will be 25% higher than they were before the Postal Service started its prefunding payments.

With declining revenue, this huge unfunded liability would be a burden that the Postal Service could not afford to bear.

LL: So bottom line, the unions claim of the postal service pre-funding pensions for future workers is false?

Chairman Issa: Absolutely false. The non-partisan Congressional Research Service recently found that pre-funding requirements match Congress’ intent when they were enacted in 2006. The intent is to ensure that the growing unfunded liability for retiree health care for current employees is covered. These employees negotiated for and earned these benefits with their work, so USPS should pay for them.

Likewise, USPS must be self-sustaining, and not funded by the taxpayers. Prefunding is a prudent measure to protect employee’s earned benefits and taxpayer money.

LL: Are the postal unions resorting to fear tactics and myths to scare Americans about what is really going on?

Chairman Issa: Postal workers who have been writing their members of Congress or protesting are just responding to the information that they have been given by their own union leadership. They have been told this money is not covering their benefits, but in fact covering benefits of people who haven’t been born yet. That’s absolutely false.

They have been told there is an overpayment in another pension account that could cover their retiree health care benefits. The non-partisan Government Accountability Office, which audits financial reports for the entire federal government, has weighed in to clearly state that allegation is false. They have been led to believe outrageously false things about Congress “stealing” their money to pay for other things.

The truth will get out there and postal union members will finally understand we’re looking out for them as well as the taxpayer. Postal reform is necessary to secure their earned benefits.

LL: There are a lot of plans out there when it comes to reforming and strengthening the US Postal System including yours. What is the viability of a Senate Bill?

Chairman Issa: What Senate bill? The Senate has a number of different proposals, including one that mirrors the House proposal, but haven’t been able to move forward with anything. So far, only the Issa-Ross Postal Reform Act has shown that it has the necessary support to advance. I believe there needs to be a negotiated bill that can pass both the House and Senate, but so far only the House bill has demonstrated an ability to serve as a viable beginning for discussion.

LL: Americans are tired of bailouts. Should the US Government bailout the US Postal Service?

Chairman Issa: Even if taxpayers forked over every dollar that the Postal Service has ever asked for through multiple backdoor bailout requests, it would only kick the can down the road. The Postmaster General told New York City letter carriers that even if their preferred bailout bill was signed into law they would still probably shut down next summer. A bailout is simply not an option. We need real reform.

LL: If the postal service cannot pay, American taxpayers will be on the hook for those postal benefits correct?

Chairman Issa: That’s correct. Postal employees are federal employees. All federal pension and retirement benefits are paid from the U.S. Treasury. Since the Postal Service’s operating costs are collected from ratepayers, the Postal Service pays the U.S. Treasury for the costs of federal pension benefits postal workers are legally entitled to receive. Even if the Postal Service cannot or does not make these payments, postal workers are still entitled to pension benefits from the Federal government. So it’s ultimately taxpayers who get stuck with the bill if the Postal Service can’t pay the Treasury for the costs of pensions. Check out this video for an animated explanation.

LL: Based on the restructuring proposed, how many jobs are expected to be lost?

Chairman Issa: Downsizing the Postal Service can be done without major disruption to postal workers in the middle of their careers. There are 150,000 postal employees eligible to retire today, with full benefits.

In the next four years, there will be an additional 100,000 employees ready to retire with full benefits. The Postmaster General has proposed changes that would shrink the workforce by 220,000 individuals. If we can agree on a method to incentivize retirement or focus workforce reductions on those who can retire with full benefits, downsizing can occur without adding to the unemployment rolls.

LL: For those Americans who do not want to see their Saturday mail delivery discontinued or post office closed. What's your message to them?

Chairman Issa: Personally, I do not want to see the Postal Service end Saturday delivery or see post offices closed. But the Postal Service is losing $10 billion a year and needs to find ways to cut costs.

Gosh PK.....you are easy......the prefunding limits match Congress's intent......which is to privatize the post office......Pace is entirely right and your cut and paste is hilarious double talk......you cannot even discern why......too funny......the whole article with all its objective type discussion is simply saying that the prefunding matches Congress's intent.......that is like saying that the plane exploding against an American ship by a Japanese pilot matches the intent of the pilot. NOBODY prefunds in the private sector like the post office, but then again Congress has not intended them to when they are being paid by the private carriers to try to steal the most lucrative business of the post office and leave rural America without service....PK....you really have become one dimensional lately and not even understanding your own posts.....Pace.....good analysis.

Here is a suggestion......take 10 billion off direct subsidies to rich farmers and we have solved the problem for the next seventy five years...........of course you love subsidy to the 1%......it is the core of your ad hoc paradigm. The post office works great. I have never had a problem, and it is nice once a day to talk to my mailman who comes into the office to pick up the mail. Those who are getting campaign contributions to carve up the profitable post office routes only to abandon rural America need to be summarily executed in the public square.

Wait til there is no PO.... A lack of competition will make mail rates sky high

Package shipping is already competitive... the rest of snail mail is going extinct. Why leave an enormous debt?

Cutting govt services sure scares you progressives.

Cutting govt services sure scares you progressives.


Nope, cutting efficient government services which serve under served rural areas of America for the purpose of enriching private sector companies who want to cherry pick the profitable and abandon the rural areas is treason. The bastards should be lined up and summarily executed. I am all for improvements in the Post office which may in fact involve reductions, but it has worked great since the day of Ben Franklin and it continues to work great as I use the mail regularly in both my business footprints, and one of my businesses is in a rural area where the cost from private carriers is off the chart. The Post Office is efficient and serves a great purpose. Shame on the traitors in the back pocket of lobbyist striving to carve up the most profitable sections of the post office.

If you truly want it to continue then it must be revenue neutral... and that must include the funding of liabilities.

Why must every govt service be an entitlement and a give away?

75 years worth? Really ? 15 years worth of medical ? Really? No other business model operates in that manner. The article proved it.

That 75-year pre-funding mandate adds substantially to the post office's losses. This is a requirement that no other government agency, let alone a private company, must face. In short, the USPS is paying for people who aren't even employees yet -- in fact, may not even be born yet!

That isn't true... I showed you the crs analysis. Further... it's going to fail... it's just a matter of liability now.

You want another enormous clusterfuck money pit? Apparently yes... how very conservative of you comrade.

Why must every govt service be an entitlement and a give away?

You really do have conceptual limitations. Folks form local, state, and Federal government to cooperate in providing needed services to the people who form the governments. I am currently involved with a drainage district which taxes and maintains drain tiles in a rural area and part of a Village. The benefits of the drainage district are not perfectly distributed and the costs are not perfectly distritubted, but NOBODY talks about entitlement, rather function and efficiency in providing the drainage for a 4000 acre area. You just have never been part of government and have a childish conception of how government works.

That isn't true... I showed you the crs analysis.

Nope, you really cannot read. The analysis you showed said that it conformed with Congress's intent........that is quite different from the lie you are trying to pass off. Pace is dead cinch correct on this and you could not be more wrong.

I don't think it's a "needed service" to be provided by the govt anymore. I think it's a dinosaur that's going extinct.

But I can understand why you would support the continued waste of billions every year and a huge unfunded liability.

That's what enormous socialist/fascist govts do... greece, spain, portugal... etc. Why do leftists never learn from history?

Pk says his mother told him he should pay off his 100k mortgage on his house in five years. It is a liability and it should be paid off in five years. The house is rated to survive without major repairs for 100 years.

Another person says, but you know PK most people take out 15 or 30 year mortgages, and your current income cannot cover your expenses if you proceed with a five year mortgage. Pk responds that CSR (my mom) says that five year pay back is the only way............

Lies are so simple to discover, but sometimes so difficult to understand by some.

I can give you three examples of screw ups in the US postal service since operating one of my businesses in 33 years. The rest of the time they are as reliable as an atomic clock. With Fed Ex, UPS, and other private carriers I have had more screw ups and pay much more for the service. The Postal service is necessary for some of us in Business and it has been working great for me and is really inexpensive. You can raise the stamp prices to cover gaps, but to create artificial gaps by Congress and then argue it is losing money.....BIG LIE for the little bus crowd.

We have UPS, DHS, FED EX, etc., not to mention that we get bills via email and text. We pay bills through electronic bill pay. Why is the USPS needed??

Oh wait, we would get those credit card applications! Or the AARP propaganda?