Saturday, December 22, 2012

Deliberately destroying the post office

In 2005 the then Republican controlled Congress passed bill HR22 requiring the Post Office pay $5 billion dollars a year, over a ten year period, for healthcare cost 75 years in the future. No other part of government or any other corporation in the world has to do this. The post office is the only part of government that funds itself. It funds itself my selling stamps, express mail, money orders and many other services. It does not take American taxpayer money. This bill was passed to bankrupt the postal service so it could be privatized broken into pieces and sold to the highest bidder. 
These $5 billion dollar a year payments started in 2006. In 2006 then President George W. Bush appointed four members to the five member Postal Board of Governors who selects the Postmaster General to runs the postal service. Those four members appointed by President George W. Bush were (Thurgood Marshall Jr., Mickey Barnett, James Bilbray and Louis Giuliano). Only one member Dennis Toner was appointed to the board by President Obama (usa.gov).The Postal Board of Governors selected Patrick Donahoe (usps.gov) as Postmaster General. 
Today the 2012 Republican controlled Congress, the Postal Board of Governors and Postmaster General Donahoe are at it again. They want to take all California Postal Service driving jobs from San Francisco to San Diego and give them to outside private contractors by the end of 2012. Postmaster General Donahoe claims this is being done because California postal diesel vehicles don't meet air pollution requirements. The APWU (American Postal Workers Union) offered to modify these vehicles at no cost to the Postal Service. So far, Postmaster General Donahoe has not responded to the APWU offer. This proves money is not the issue. This is another attempt to take government jobs and give them to outside private contracting companies whose main goal is making money not serving the needs of the American people.

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