{"id":13367,"date":"2013-02-09T16:46:11","date_gmt":"2013-02-09T21:46:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/?p=13367"},"modified":"2013-02-09T16:47:26","modified_gmt":"2013-02-09T21:47:26","slug":"the-post-office-isnt-broke-its-being-robbed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/2013\/02\/09\/the-post-office-isnt-broke-its-being-robbed\/","title":{"rendered":"The post office isn&#8217;t broke &#8212; it&#8217;s being robbed"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Credo Action<\/em> is asking us to sign a petition.\u00a0 See their request at <a title=\"Credo Action Petition\" href=\"http:\/\/act.credoaction.com\/campaign\/usps_sat_delivery\/?rc=tw1\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>The post office isn&#8217;t broke &#8212; it&#8217;s being robbed<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The United States Postal Service has just announced that due to budget shortfalls, mail will no longer be delivered on Saturdays starting in August.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s true the post office faces financial challenges. But the financial problems are in large part a direct result of an onerous and ill-considered 2006 law called the &#8220;Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act&#8221; (PAEA) that mandates pre-funding the postal service retiree health care and pension benefits for 75 years \u2014 something that no other government agency or private company is forced to do.<\/p>\n<p>The vast majority \u2014 85% \u2014 of the budget red ink comes from this pre-funding mandate despite the fact that, according to the post office Inspector General, the pension is over-funded and reserves for retiree health care are far higher than the federal government as a whole, the military and almost all Fortune 1000 companies.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I saw the news report by Scott Pelley on the <em>CBS Evening News<\/em> on Friday.\u00a0 He went through a litany of\u00a0reasons for the US Postal Service&#8217;s deficit, but did not mention the reason that is behind 85% of the deficit.\u00a0 I wanted to scream or throw something at the TV.\u00a0 Who has got so much power over <em>CBS Evening News<\/em> that they could get <em>CBS Evening News<\/em> to suppress this information?<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s not like I haven&#8217;t been blogging about this subject for over a year.<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"Previous post\" href=\"http:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/2012\/04\/29\/postal-rescue-faces-uncertain-future-after-senate-oks-bill\/\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Postal rescue faces uncertain future after Senate OK\u2019s bill<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a title=\"Previous post\" href=\"http:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/2011\/09\/28\/republican-saboteurs-go-after-the-post-office\/\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Republican Saboteurs Go After The Post Office<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a title=\"Previous post\" href=\"http:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/2011\/09\/28\/a-manufactured-%e2%80%98crisis%e2%80%99-congress-can-let-the-post-office-save-itself-without-mass-layoffs-or-service-reductions\/\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Who Woulda Thought \u2013 A Manufactured \u2018Crisis\u2019 At The Post Office<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p>I\u00a0 thank JaneS for forwarding the email about the <em>Credo Action<\/em> petition.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Credo Action is asking us to sign a petition.\u00a0 See their request at The post office isn&#8217;t broke &#8212; it&#8217;s being robbed. The United States Postal Service has just announced that due to budget shortfalls, mail will no longer be delivered on Saturdays starting in August. It&#8217;s true the post office faces financial challenges. But [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[166],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-13367","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-stevegsposts","7":"czr-hentry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13367","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13367"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13367\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13369,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13367\/revisions\/13369"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}