Obama admin silent as USPS lays off 35,000 workers...with more layoffs to come

[brentspeak]

145. I think you're right about Obama not appointing Donohoe

Last edited Sun Feb 26, 2012, 03:12 PM - Edit history (2)

Regardless -- after all is said, Obama is still on the same page as Patrick Donohoe, so the reality of the situation remains the same even if I made a blunder here on a web forum. They both agree with Saturday closings, they both want large postal rate increases, and they both apparently agree with the facility closings and job cuts:

The Postal Service has proposed each of the changes Obama advanced as well as reducing its workforce by firing as many as 220,000 employees and closing post offices and mail-processing plants.

Obama’s budget didn’t address the facility closings or job cuts.

“It’s a political hot potato for them,” Del Polito said. “They don’t want to tick off a key Democratic constituency going into a national election.”

Furthermore, and most importantly, for three years, the Obama administration has failed to endorse any of the Democratic-led legislative efforts to reverse the 2006 prefunding requirement. The administration didn't bother to address the issue at all until the other week when it submitted postal reform suggestions for the new federal budget. As evidenced by the facility closings made at the same exact time -- what's the point now? That is hardly the mark of a President who had seriously wanted to prevent all these facility closings and job cuts.

Finally, as for presidents and the people they nominate to USPS brass postions:

http://www.savethepostoffice.com/what-were-you-thinking-mr-president-obama-nominates-hammond-prc

What were you thinking, Mr. President? Obama nominates Hammond to the PRC

December 2, 2011

On Friday the White House announced that President Obama was nominating Tony Hammond as the fifth commissioner on the Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC). No offense to Mr. Hammond, but that’s probably not good news for communities trying to save their post office or processing plant, and it’s not good news for postal workers either.

The PRC is supposed to have five commissioners, but for months now, there have been only four, and we’ve been waiting to hear who the President would nominate to fill out the term of Commissioner Dan Blair, which runs to November 2012. According to US Code, "Not more than three of the Commissioners may be adherents of the same political party." Currently there are two Democrats — Ruth Goldway and Nanci Langley — and two Republicans — Mark Acton and Robert Taub. Obama could have appointed a Democrat, but instead he chose Hammond, a Republican.

It’s not that Hammond is ill equipped to be a Commissioner. He was on the PRC from 2002 to 2010, and he served twice as its Vice-Chairman. He obviously knows the ropes.

Still, with all those years on the PRC, you wouldn’t say Hammond brings a fresh perspective to the Commission, and he is definitely hard-core Republican. For much of his career, he was a Republican political operative. From 1989 to 1994, he was the director of the Missouri Republican Party, and in 1998 he was Director of Campaign Operations for the Republican National Committee. Hammond was involved with postal matters during the ten years he served on Capitol Hill on the staff of Southwest Missouri Congressman Gene Taylor, the Ranking Member of the Post Office and Civil Service Committee.

(Note: Obama's one other nomination to the PRC was Republican Robert G. Taub.)