From the US Constitution
“7: To establish Post Offices and post Roads;
Is that not clear enough? It’s an enumerated power and duty of the US federal government that’s enshrined in the body of our Constitution. One not rebuffed by the future states before ratification. One that has never been altered by an amendment. And yet, there have been and are forces out in this country and in Congress seeking to subvert this clause for their own profit.
The Koch funded Reason Foundation made it clear in its Annual Privatization Report 2005 what they wanted to do to the US Post Office.
The federal government operates numerous business enterprises that could be converted into publicly traded corporations, including the USPS, Amtrak, and a number of electricity utilities. Other countries have indepth experience in privatizing such services that Congress can use when it moves ahead with reforms.
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Moving forward calls for privatizing USPS and repealing the first-class mail monopoly that it currently holds…the USPS suffers from a high wage premium (it pays an estimated 21.2 to 35.7 percent more than would a comparable private sector employer, which represents 12 to 20 percent of total costs) and low productivity increases (only 9.2 percent from 1970 to 1999).”
If the intent of these so-called libertarians isn’t clear enough from that, another section of their report is more explicit:
In December Reason co-produced a policy brief with TSAugust, called What’s in the Government’s Attic, on the need for an inventory of federal government land assets to determine what they actually hold. And more importantly what lands and assets are excess, unneeded, or underutilized and could be divested.
Sell off valuable assets, bust unions, cut wages, and raise prices. The business model of vulture capitalists like Mitt Romney. Only better because there are no stockholders to get in the way of consummating the deal. Only a few politicians — and always enough of whom are easily duped and/or bribed to get the deal done.
Having failed in 2005 to privatize Social Security in a single bound with their oligarchic puppet George W. Bush and having some sense that Americans have a soft spot for their Post office, they succeeded with the longer-term back-door assault on the Post Office with the POSTAL ACCOUNTABILITY AND ENHANCEMENT ACT (H.R. 6407 in December 2006). What that bill did was guarantee that the USPS would record large paper losses, almost regardless of whatever efficiencies and rate increases it could achieve, for enough years that the public could be convinced that it must be privatized. Well, except for the components that don’t and can’t pay their own way; those will remain as the US Post Office and paid for out of the public purse.
Guess the oath of office that all members of Congress take is just a quaint and meaningless exercise because those men and women routinely ignore the promise “protect and defend the Constitution.” And in this case, Senators acted like weasels in doing so.
In the wee morning hours of December 8, 2006, the last day of the lame duck Session, the Senate concluded its legislative business with `unanimous consent’ adoption of the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act (PAEA – HR 6407) without any debate or roll call vote.
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It wasn’t any better in the House:
Adopted by the House of Representatives 24 hours earlier on a bipartisan voice vote, the Act was touted by Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) as `assuring long term viability of the postal service’ that will `satisfy the concerns of postal service employees.’ Rep. Ray LaHood (R-Ill), now Obama’s Secretary of Transportation, was in the Speaker’s Chair and about to gavel the Act “adopted” when Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind) requested the ayes and nays. LaHood determined an `insufficient number present’ and announced the Act as “passed’. …
Guess it’s best that when members of Congress are feeling all bipartisany that they don’t have to go on record when they trash the Constitution to put more money in the pockets of the 1% and less in the pockets of honest working stiffs. And any UPS or Fed-Ex employees that believe they will benefit if the USPS is privatized are ignorant or stupid.
Maybe if US postal workers and their union leaders were out there screaming “The Constitution, the Constitution, the Constitution” along with demanding a repeal of the H.R 6407 poison pill(s) half as loudly and often as the teabaggers and gun-nuts do, the public will get a clue as to all the looting of public treasure that has been going on. And maybe, just maybe, for the first time in decades, enough of “us” will see what “we” need to do.
