Senate panel passes Postal Service overhaul bill

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Reuters

Senate panel passes Postal Service overhaul bill
By Emily Stephenson Emily Stephenson – 15 mins ago

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A Senate panel approved on Wednesday legislation to free up about $7 billion to help sustain the nearly bankrupt U.S. Postal Service while the mail carrier fixes its finances.

The bill, offered by a bipartisan group of four senators, would allow the agency, the world's largest mail carrier, to dip into surplus funds in a retirement account to use toward retirement incentives for workers and to make other payments.

It will now go to the full Senate for a vote, though it is unclear when that will occur.

The Postal Service expects to announce it lost as much as $10 billion in fiscal year 2011 when it reports its annual earnings next week.



Read more: http://old.news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111109/pl_nm/us_usa_postal_senate

[midnight]

1. More painful cuts for public workers....

"Senators Joe Lieberman, Scott Brown and Tom Carper also sponsored the Senate bill, which reduces annual payments for health benefits and allows the Postal Service to offer some nonpostal products."

[abelenkpe]

2. So wrong

What can people do to support the postal service and public employees?

[SnakeEyes]

6. Use the postal service?

I know... i dont need it either. :(

[femrap]

10. I'm sending recycled Holiday

cards that were made in the US this year....to anyone and everyone just so some people can have some jobs. Sometimes postal service hires part time people.

And my message will be: 'Sending this card so Postal Workers keep their jobs. Maybe you could do the same?'

Usually I send a song or poem I've written...which is usually very political. Like last year I wrote lyrics to the song with all the Falalalalalalala lalalas. First line was: Tax the Rich until their Eyes Bleed....falalalalala lalala.

Some were offended....fuck them. This year just 2 sentences unless something really exciting happens before Xmas.

[fascisthunter]

3. the economic class war rages on by the 1% and their fanatics

[Iliyah]

4. Lieberman

has really turned his back on America.

[AsahinaKimi]

7. Lieberman

can not retire fast enough! I wish he would just go.

[benld74]

5. Lieberman is a toad

[IamK]

8. the amount of postal work is dropping as a % much faster than workers retire...

there are also constant increases in technology. Email and the bar code is the post office's enemy more than any real competition...

[hootinholler]

9. IIRC That retirement fund is causing the problem. n/t

[glinda]

11. We should have a special mail a package or card week. I love the Postal Service.

My friend in Canada said that if they go private we will be waiting a week or two for mail that should take only a couple of days.

[freshwest]

15. Make it as big as Christmas and the Senate will know why the Post Office is a necessity!

Those wanting to get rid of the USPS hate the Commons. Here's a snippet of American history most teabaggers probably don't know:

'The USPS traces its roots to 1775 during the Second Continental Congress, where Benjamin Franklin was appointed the first postmaster general. The cabinet-level Post Office Department was created in 1792 from Franklin's operation and transformed into its current form in 1971 under the Postal Reorganization Act.'

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Postal_Service

:patriot:

Keep the USPS!

[glinda]

16. Interesting. I think we should all mail packages to "Santa".

[freshwest]

19. Well, the USPS appears to know where he lives, huh? There was a print version of this I remember:

But this is the video version. Human kindness goes a long way:

http://www.towleroad.com/2010/12/miracle.html

[bluesmail]

12. As a retired CSRS PO rural carrier

I pay all my bills by PO and I believe it's the right thing to do. Whether it's Full time or Part time work, it doesn't matter, coming from a recently retired CSRS Rural Carrier who always drove her left hand drive car. It's a great place to work, used to be a heck of a lot better back in the 70's, then slowly things started becoming draconian, little by little. Thanks for posting this, I don't get much Post Office news. :)

[Welibs]

13. Oh.... this ain't good. A lot of small business depend on the

PO and they will die a painful death if these idiots screw with it. It's broke because Republicans have been skimming off of it for almost a decade. Access to all funds should be restricted and Republicans should have no access what so ever!

[CatholicEdHead]

18. Even FedEx and UPS use it

to ship many packages from one part of the country to another, then they pick it up and deliver it the last few miles and charge so much more than just straight USPS use.

[bhikkhu]

14. Noting thast most people have the back-story to this wrong - some facts:

The post office had its busiest year in mail-handling in 2006, and while e-mail is cutting into its total volume, the replacement of local shopping by internet sales is boosting the package delivery side. The demise of the postal service is vastly over-stated.

The chief culprit of the current "bankrupt" state has much less to do with the normal operation of the USPS, and little to do with the recession; primarily it comes from the Postal Accountability Enhancement Act passed in 2006, which required the full funding of projected obligations out to 2057, among other things.

It was a repug hit-job which is bearing fruit, as planned, in a manner similar to other repug hit-jobs like NCLB. Here's an article worth reading: http://blog.aflcio.org/2011/09/14/how-republicans-crippled-the-united-states-postal-service/

Good policies have good results, and good government is common enough in western democracies; it seems to be only here in the last three decades we have elected several rafts of people who have nothing but hate for government, and little interest in the people government serves. To get good government you have to elect good people to office. We can't change crap like this if we don't know or don't care, and if we keep electing the same asshats...

[sarcasmo]

17. More union busting as our government continues to help the 1%.