What in the world are you looking at?
Surely not the Postal Service.... have you actually looked at your mail? Mostly advertising, a few bills (and that's decreasing too), and a few publications that don't use private carriers. Right?
The USPS is losing 36 million dollars a day.... A DAY!! A 12% cut (if it ever gets through) might cut it down to 30 million dollars a day....A DAY!!!!! Surely you can see there's a problem here?
Romney (and several others and that includes Democrats) are suggesting an OVERHAUL (not an elimination - which has been erroneously circulated by Who Knows What Special Interests Who Want the Post Office Remaining As Is - in the Daily Kos, and many Union and government fliers) to create something that isn't such a black hole for taxpayers.
Yes, the Postal Service is going to lose a lot of jobs (Union jobs at that) over this. But that is because the USPS in its present form is unaffordable.

Why is that so hard to see??

"it is efficiently run"

Given that it is losing billions every year and its main revenue source (first class mail) is going away, the post office is in a downward spiral.

No doesn't anyone pay any attention to what congress has done to make the post office to fail..There is NO corporation or business which can do what congress has made they do..

In 2006 congress passed legislation into law requiring the Postal Service to collect 75 years of liablity that has to be paid in 10 years... This is something no business or government agency has to do. To pre-fund its future retiree health care benefits.
Postal Service has had a net profit of $611 million dollars. The red ink associated with the post office is the mandated pre-funding since 2006..

This is the problem when you have persons posting what they wish or like to post , instead of what is fact.

To >> New Flash>>

Boehner and his bill to make the Post Office to create a fund in just 10 years to
paid for retires of 75 years in the future.

NO BUSINESS does or can do that.

Republicans like everything else wants to privatize the whole nation and than
we will be under the mercy of their arrogant and criminal policies / actions as
they did to citizens 401k retirement accounts under and with the lack of oversight
from the Bush republican administration.

The Postal Service is efficiently run???? WOW! Don't ever go into business for yourself.

The Postal Service is a horrible place to work! The Union gets special treatment and take care of there friends. The rest of us get treated like s***! Hell we don't even have time to go to the bathroom!!!! Running our buts off to deliver routs that are way over burden! If you get back late the Postmaster calls you in his office the next day and screams at you, saying what the hell are you doing out there!! Them proceeds to tell you how worthless you are and how you should be ashamed of yourself!! You know what your Union rep says to him......NOTHING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Then when the postmaster is finally done chastising you and tells you to get back to work, outside alone with the union rep you sat WTF???? Mr. Union tells you No, he can do that...your lucky to have a job!! You say file a greivence thats harrasment!! Mr.Union says No we haven't been winning those at the next step because the Post office is going out of business!!! Why do we pay these union fools to do nothing!!! WHY?? Why should we vote for the people they tell us to.......So they can continue to sit on there buts and collect money for doing NOTHING! Unions were a beautiful thing! Now they are full of corruption and greed! They are worse then MGMT.....they F you over while smiling at you and telling you there on you side! PLEASE MAKE THIS HELL STOP!!!!!!!!

They do not want it fixed. Just like public education they wish to make it fail , so it can be privatize and given to their friends..
Why do you believe these republicans are receiving multi million dollars for these corporations , including foreign corporations.
republicans are trying to bring the citizens of this nation down to their knees and destroy them before they wake up and see what is happening.
They control the news , the courts and are buying all the elected officials.
They are voter caging , placing poll tax on citizens and purging voters from the voter registration rolls.
If that is not enough they control the electronic voting machines to change or delete votes at their will.

Romney: B.SSS! Romney is a true Klan without the white sheet!

Be spent on health care--do you mean universal health care, the kind most of the free world has?

Oh you mean they have to plan to pay for the benefit packages and not rely on the Government to bail them out? Damn, that's not fair.

Just One Vote:

What part of NH Labor News Network's reply didn't you understand? We could explain it to you if you wish...

By the way, compare and contrast your imagined bailouts for the USPS with the *ACTUAL* bailouts paid in the last few years to a quite a variety of "too big to fail" financial institutions. Or, reaching back a bit farther, maybe we should discuss the bailout of Neil Bush and his Silverado Savings and Loan? You know Neil Bush: Son of G.H.W. Bush and Brother of G.W. Bush? That one cost us $1.3 billion.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savings_and_loan_crisis#Silverado_Savings_and_Loan

Is there still something you don't understand?

The USPS Does, I repeat DOES use our tax dollars.
They do NOT (as you said) get the dollars directly as for the longest time they made their own money.
However, they haven't made their own money for a LONG time (well before GWB's Accountability and Enhancement Act). Each deficit the Postal Service increments (which is still 36 million a day no matter what we think of the Act) is paid for by the Federal government. I'm not clear where or how they send subsidies to the USPS, but they do. I also hear via a postal worker that they don't have to register their vehicles - probably part of this subsidy - though it could be some other kind of Federal program.
I hate GWB with all my heart; it is he who caused our current recession because of his incredible wasteful spending spree on illegal wars. But you have to understand that the USPS deficit is far more than a bill trying to properly fund retirement in advance in a money-losing organization which would be unconstitutional to eliminate.

Are you talking about HR6407 the Postal Accounatability and Enhancement act that was voted on in Dec 2006. This bill was co-sponsored by 3 congressmen, 2 of whom are Democrats. This bill passed the house on a voice vote and passed unanimously in the Senate. Seems like both parties agreed on this legislation and is not a Bush attack on the Post Office.

Also, don't forget the Pension protection Act sponsored by republican John Boehner that was passed in the same year that sets a funding target of 100% of plan obligations for private businesses with pension plans, with any shortfalls to be amoritized over 7 years.

@ Atlant, I did not understand the part about how the post office "funds" itself but does not have funding for its compensation package. I fail to see how requiring any government program to be actually funded is a bad thing.
Furthermore since USPS does in fact pull loans from the treasury, and they are in fact generating unfunded liabilities, that means at some point they are going to start to loose market competitiveness; hmm yup that's happening. Then next they default on the loan, hmm yup we can see it coming and predict it given the labor package demanded by the union, hence the bipartisan passage of this "horrid" concept that they pay for their operational expenses. So now we call it a "republican attack" when in fact it is a bail out in waiting when they can't pay the loan back.....hmm yea this is a GREAT idea. If the private sector ran this way they would be out of business. Get a clue and stop your partisan rants.

Just One Vote:

The part you're missing comes from just before your hypothetical begins. The Republicans forced an unreasonable (far-too-fast) pension funding scheme onto the USPS as a "poison pill"; that's the reason the USPS is currently having difficulties meeting its needs for cash to fund the pension program.

You further assume that it's a given that they will default on the loans they were therefore forced to obtain from the Treasury; I don't take that as a given.

As usual, we have the Republicans breaking a piece of the Government and then pointing to the wreckage and saying "See? Government doesn't work!"

@Atlant, funding of the pensions requirement was unanimously passed in the senate and voice passed in the house during a time when democrats controlled majorities in both; how is that solely republican?

What is a reasonable time-line to actually fund the compensation packages?

Why wasn't funding the compensation package agreed to when the compensation package was agreed to?

By the USPS own admission they are loosing money without the requirement that they actually fund their compensation package.

How is it reasonable to even offer a compensation package without knowing how it is going to be paid for?

Just One Vote:

At the time the USPS agreed to the compensation package, they funded it using sound actuarial metrics; Congress screwed that up.

And if they're "loosing" all this money, where can we stand to catch some of it? As I mentioned, pensions aside, they don't routinely *LOSE* money; they oscillate around break-even as postal rates rise.

@Atlant, please provide supportive references to your statements. I would like to read about how the compensation package was once funded.

@Atlant, please feel free to answer the other questions too as I still do not understand those items either.

@Slanted left News network, care to stand with Atlant and back these claims up?

TO... "Just one vote"....

This is what NH Labor News Network means.....
But of course I am sure you do not except it...

Neither workers nor our unions caused this crisis.
http://my.firedoglake.com/kaytillow/2011/09/26/whats-the-real-story-behind-the-postal-crisis/

In 2006, Congress passed the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act. This law requires the Postal Service to do something that no other business or government agency has to do–pre-fund its FUTURE retiree health care benefits. This is a 75 year liability that has to be paid in 10 years. The Postal Service makes a payment of approximately $5.5 billion on September 30 at the end of every fiscal year to meet this obligation. The Post Office has been paying these benefits the past four years into a trust fund for employees who have not even been born yet. This is the burden that is creating the “financial crisis” for the Post Office. The recession that has gripped America the past few years has undoubtedly affected the Postal Service, but even in the worst economic times since the great depression, the USPS has had a net profit of $611 million dollars. Unfortunately, the red ink associated with the post office is the mandated pre-funding since 2006.

To "salemvoter"

Read this bill which Boehner introduced and had passed in 2006

Corporations have the freedom of opting out if they wish......
And no way in ... can the employees pay for their retirement and health benefits for retirement in just 10 years.
http://www.financial-dynamics.org/Pension%20Protection%20Act%20of%202006.pdf

To "Just One Vote'

IS Fedex a private delivery service and yet they do not have to fund their retirees 75 retirement package in just 10 years.
That is if they really have one other the the employees having their OWN 401 retirement plan. And I am sure that the employees are not funding their 75 years of retirement in just 10 years.

Face it.... Republicans are trying to destroy every public jobs or program there is.
They wish to put every single piece of money into the pockets of the corporate monopolies and the h... with the workers or citizens.

Look around , republicans no longer tell the truth today.
Look at their corporate candidate for president.
Romeny Buys businesses , outsources the jobs , puts the businesses OUT of business and make millions doing it ,
than goes to the next business.

Postal Service Net Income By Year
2010 - $8.5 billion loss
2009 - $3.8 billion loss
2008 - $2.8 billion loss
2007 - $5.1 billion loss
2006 - $900 million surplus
2005 - $1.4 billion surplus
2004 - $3.1 billion surplus
2003 - $3.9 billion surplus
2002 - $676 million loss
2001 - $1.7 billion loss
http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/consumerawareness/a/Postal-Service-Loses-By-Year.htm

NH Labor News - Thanks for the citation to wiki. Here's a quote from your cite:
"However, it does receive tens to hundreds of millions per year in "implicit subsidies", such as breaks on property tax, vehicle registration, and sales tax, in addition to subsidized government loans."
...and here's one from CNN Money from March 2012: "The Postal Service is facing such a cash crunch that it has a $12.1 billion loan outstanding from Treasury."
Sounds like taxpayer dollars to me.

Omigod!! Directly from your link:
"The USPS has not directly received taxpayer-dollars since the early 1980s with the minor exception of subsidies for costs associated with the disabled and overseas voters. However, it does receive tens to hundreds of millions per year in "implicit subsidies", such as breaks on property tax, vehicle registration, and sales tax, in addition to subsidized government loans.[6] Since the 2006 all-time peak mail volume [7], after which Congress passed the "Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act"[8], (which mandated $5.5 billion per year to be paid into an account to pre-fund retiree health-care, 75 years into the future -- a requirement unique to this agency), revenue dropped sharply due to recession-influenced [9] declining mail volume,[10], prompting the postal service to look to other sources of revenue while cutting costs to reduce its budget deficit"
Tens to hundreds of millions per year... from where again?
Deficits caused from declining mail volume are going to come... from where again?
Complimentary vehicle registration... money coming.... from where again?
Their property taxes are being paid .... from where again?

Your statement, "the USPS does not use tax dollars" is proven false by the very link you provided.

@ Tim

Off topic. But since you did go there http://costofwar.com/

How much did Bush's needless, bloody war and big fat tax cuts to Thurston and Lovey add to the debt?

People are sick and tired of Bailouts. The US Economy cannot consist of Government Employees. You would have to be a Stupid President or a Stupid Democrat to believe that.

First of all, it is (believe it or not) unconstitutional to eliminate the Post Office, so no way is it going to get rid of ALL its workers in any overhaul.
Second of all, terrible as it is, you simply can't put people to work while causing debt because in the long run you will run out of money... and those workers won't be paid anyway. It is important in any government investment that the need is actually there and sustaining. So It is just as important to have the USPS paying for itself again, otherwise someone else will pay for it thus making those who are footing the bill that much poorer (obviously).
I continue to wonder why this is so hard to see.

@ the shill, hold up, so you think 574,000 people who produce a negative, I repeat NEGATIVE return for services the private sector renders competitively at a profit is a good thing? Why do this; just for the sake of work? Why not have people work and, gasp, actually provide a positive return? Actually contribute to the GDP, instead of being a drag on it.

@ Tim

No link? No supporting information? Shocking.

Your estimate of 30 billion miles driven per year is way off. While the postal service has 213,881 vehicles (2012), they drive much less each year than 150,000 miles on average. The USPS reports 1.2 billion miles driven each year by letter carriers and truck drivers (2012). Also, most of those miles are in little delivery vehicles that get much more than 10 MPG. If they average 20 MPG that comes to 60 million gallons of gasoline per year. Even if we blame Obama for $1.50 per gallon of gasoline prices (which seems excessive to me), we come to $90 million per year -- real money, but not the essence of the Postal Service's problems.

The purpose of the USPS never was to make a profit. It was to deliver mail. It's a service. It's still the cheapest way to get a letter across the country in a couple days.

@David, you have got to be kidding? 36 million a day loss is cheap?!?@?#?@!? Everyone who sends a letter is freeloading on the US taxpayer! That is the problem with liberal thinking, there is zero concept of cost, zero accountability, and zero responsibility.

David Victory (who I agree with more than I disagree) says:
"The purpose of the USPS never was to make a profit. It was to deliver mail. It's a service. It's still the cheapest way to get a letter across the country in a couple days."
Wellllll.... Except if you want to send mail a little cheaper and faster, there's email. (And that's why you rarely get "mail" in the mail these days).
Nothing created as an offshoot of the Federal Government (The USPS, the Federal Reserve, etc etc) was designed to make a profit. However, if it's gotten to the point that we are over-subsidizing such an agency, then something has to be done.

Don't be a piker. If you want earn a truly hefty salary, become a captain of industry. There, you can lose billions of dollars and still be paid tens of millions of dollars, far in excess of any salary paid by the USPS.

"Republicans: Ruining things, err running things like a business so Republicans get wealthier and the rest of us get poorer but the stupid ones think they're getting richer."

Many people don't understand this:

"In 2006, Congress passed the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act. This law requires the Postal Service to do something that no other business or government agency has to do – pre-fund its FUTURE retiree health care benefits. This is a 75 year liability that has to be paid in 10 years. The Postal Service makes a payment of approximately $5.5 billion on September 30 at the end of every fiscal year to meet this obligation. The Post Office has been paying these benefits the past four years into a trust fund for employees who have not even been born yet. This is the burden that is creating the “financial crisis” for the Post Office. The recession that has gripped America the past few years has undoubtedly affected the Postal Service, but even in the worst economic times since the great depression, the USPS has had a net profit of $611 million dollars. Unfortunately, the red ink associated with the post office is the mandated pre-funding since 2006."
http://my.firedoglake.com/kaytillow/2011/09/26/whats-the-real-story-behind-the-postal-crisis/

Now, Politifact has a pretty good, thoughtful take on the situation.
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2011/sep/29/save-americas-postal-service/ad-save-americas-postal-service-claims-rule-congre/

Founding Father Ben Franklin set up the USPS over 200 years ago. It has served us well. It deserves respect, and an adult look at the situation.

We spend billions every year subsidizing Congress, they don,t do anything but suck up our money. you don't seem to have aproblem with that.

Mr. Chagnon: count me among the Bush haters. Your war arguments are laughably out of date and wrong.
But everything else is right, and cutting postal services in half is an excellent idea. There's nothing wrong with having a service just like Europe's, right? (not sarcasm; that's how they've done mail service over there for decades in a variety of ways - as each country is a little bit different.)

"Union thugs": I'll ask my letter carrier whether or not they are a union thug the next time I see them out in the freezing wet or boiling heat busting their 'nads to deliver my mail.

Well they loose more than that when compared to the private sector; the private sector does not get the same tax breaks / subsidies as USPS. Given that the US Treasury is where the USPS gets its loans from I would have to disagree that the entire federal government is not responsible as the US Treasury is the responsibility of the federal government.

Sounds like the way Lynch came up with that alleged state surplus.

How about we force every expenditure passed to be paid for in the same passage? That way we actually see the price tag for every service our government provides. Pretty plain and simple, you go to the store and you see an item and you find out the price, then you make the decision if it is worth the price and how you will pay for it.

Why do we even think it is reasonable to dream up the service and say send me the bill later? That is fiscally irresponsible; just like the USPS.

Just One Vote:

(One might think you are being deliberately obtuse.)

That's exactly how the USPS *USED TO OPERATE*: You wanted to mail something, you bought postage. Averaged over the years, the cost of their service was exactly provided for by the cost of goods sold.

But then Congress threw in a bomb deliberately intended to destroy their fiscal model. And folks like you seem to be applauding.

So email has not effected that model?
Technology and changing times have had no effect on the USPS service?
The fundamental logic that the status quot is going to continue is absurd and thus basing a financial plan on such shaky logic is equally absurd.

All the funding requirement did was bring the issue to light, and your solution is to, divide, blame, and add partisan rhetoric to the situation as opposed to look at the entire situation. Awesome! Thanks for the help.

Cheers

Follow the money!

That would be because among the working class, *ONLY A MORON* would support the Republican Party, the party of the 0.1%.

Who said I don't have a BUCK FUSH bumper sticker?
What makes you think I actually like him or even Mittens for that matter?
In fact I actually voted for Clinton and Obama; the latter of which never again even if it means voting for Mitt.
If you have followed my posts you would know that I would rather see both the RNC and DNC disbanded under the RICO act as I think they actually conspire to make sure they are the only ones conspiring.

Just One Vote:

Sadly, under our present political system, the next President of these United States will be either Barack Obama or Willard Romney. It won't be the Green or the Red or the Libertarian.

So if you choose to vote for a third-party candidate in the General Election, you've effectively chosen to abstain from the vote. And if you vote for Romney, you've chosen to support the Republicans and all the evil they stand for, no matter what pretty lies you tell yourself to attempt to justify your vote.

LJoel Hackbart says,
"Can you imagine, if you will, the hysterical right wing reaction if the democrats
passed a bill that forced a private corporation, like an oil company, to pay 75 years
worth of employee benefits in 10 years???????? Communism. Socialism. Marxism.
Government interference."
If it passed legally, (which would never happen as the costs would be passed to the consumer and most elected officials know this), there would be little objection, but the corporations would do all they could via lobbying to overturn the bill just as Union members are doing all they can to overturn this Act.
But as your post is just as hysterical as anything ever posted by anyone, I suppose that reminding you that Hr 6407 was affirmed unanimously in the Senate by voice vote (thus in your mind creating 44 DINOS)
Nor will it matter that the USPS didn't make a profit EVERY year before 2007.
Nor will it matter that in the last three years, the USPS would have lost money even without the bill.
Nor will it matter that if people cooperate and the overhaul is successful, the USPS will continue to exist and even flourish as a leaner more efficient agency.
Nor will it matter that the USPS cannot be "eliminated" (as reported erroneously above) because it's unconstitutional.

Unfortunately the Dems are quite often spineless. I am a progressive, not a blind
follow the party line Democrat by any means and if if you read a large variety of
my posts that would be evident. "Spineless” politicians that slap a "Dem"
on their tea shirt as far as I'm concerned can do us all a favor and get out of politics. That said, it’s a two party system, we have a realistic choice of
just two candidates in each election and given the choice of someone who is
"spineless" and someone who is downright EVIL, to answer your question, you darned right, I'll vote for a "spineless" Dem anytime.

comrade mari were lead paint chips a staple of your diet growing up ? in Bolshevik obamas amerika there will only be one class ...poor

Thinking about Obama. Think about unemployment and all his failures.