Faith-Based Campaign to Give Final Push on Health Reform

lewr2 »

Wed Sep 23, 2009 12:42 pm Agree: 0   Disagree: 0

http://www.katu.com/news/national/41856842.html

WASHINGTON (AP) - The post office will run out of money this year unless it gets help, Postmaster General John Potter told Congress on Wednesday as he sought permission to cut delivery to five days a week.

"We are facing losses of historic proportion. Our situation is critical," Potter told a House panel.

The agency lost $2.8 billion last year and is looking at much larger losses this year. Reducing mail delivery from six days to five days a week could save $3.5 billion annually, Potter said.

Potter also urged changes in how the post office pre-pays for retiree health care to cut its annual costs by $2 billion.

If the Postal Service does run out of money, the lingering question, Potter told the House Oversight post office subcommittee, is which bills will be paid and which will not. Ensuring the payment of workers' salaries comes first, he said, but other bills may have to wait.

lewr2 »

Wed Sep 23, 2009 12:41 pm Agree: 0   Disagree: 0

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,715947,00.html?iid=chix-digg

First class mail for Europe from the Atlantic coast was suspended during the last three days of June and no parcel post was shipped over the same routes for the last week of the month. The reason for the cessation of mail service was that the Post Office Department does business according to rules that do not appertain in private business; all its income goes into the public treasury; all its expenditures come from specific appropriations by Congress.

For example, Congress may appropriate such a sum of money as seems necessary for the expenses of the Post Office. Business may suddenly increase so that the Post Office has to handle much more mail than was anticipated. The income of the Post Office increases proportionately, but the amount of money it may expend in handling the increased business remains exactly the same—the amount which Congress had appropriated.

This is exactly what happened in the case of foreign mails. Congress appropriated $6,500,000 for this purpose, and adjourned on March 4. Soon after that time the Post Office Department discovered that its foreign mails had taken a great increase. But Congress was not in session and there was no means of securing a deficiency appropriation. To meet the situation the Department twice lowered the rates paid to steamship companies for carrying mail—once in March and again in June. The appropriation was nevertheless exhausted before the end of the fiscal year, on June 30. On July 1 the appropriation for the next year became available and shipments were resumed.

Post Office officials estimated that about 50,000 parcel post packages, 500,000 pieces of first class mail were detained by the shortage of funds. The Aquitania scheduled to sail on July 1, and the Leviathan on July 4 were expected to take care of the accumulation.

scientist3 »

Sun Sep 13, 2009 9:01 am Agree: 0   Disagree: 0

To viking,

I like your last sentence but your 1st few aren't completely correct. The Post Office was partially privatized. They still get gov't funds to cover their deficits. Its still against the law to compete against them.
Education is run mostly by states. The local boards can only make some decisions. There are also many federal regulations that local boards must comply with. Since vouchers/tuition tax credits aren't allowed, the public schools are a virtual monopoly.

viking »

Sun Sep 13, 2009 8:49 am Agree: 0   Disagree: 0

CC
Hi just a reality check. The post office was privatised. The government hasn't operated it in decades. The postmaster general stopped being a government cabinet position in 1971. Education is operated by local governments called school boards composed of local citizens like you and me. It is easy to blame some vague big government for problems and harder to take personal responsibility for making things better.

ccinsb »

Sat Sep 12, 2009 2:56 pm Agree: 6   Disagree: 5

The government can't run the post office, education or close-to-home medicare and medicaid. They will ruin healthcare just like these programs and the farce that is our social security program in this country.

Look at the UK to what government has done to healthcare, not to mention society by ever-increasing taxes.

Folks, the socialism slippery slope is pretty far down the slide already. Our founding fathers would be aghast to see what this nation has become.

This President has already put ACORN in charge of the census, used the Internet illegally to finance his campagin, ignore the National Day of Prayer, but then conveniently turns to religeous groups when he needs them to foster his agenda?

Wake up!

Daniel Paul »

Sat Sep 12, 2009 12:32 pm Agree: 6   Disagree: 5

I wonder how much money is being spent to try to sell this health care mess of a concept. I wonder how many people would have been better served with the money spent in other ways. What a waste.

If it was really a good idea they wouldn't need to try to sell it. It would sell itself. Quite telling....