Letter Bag: The Post Office

Welcome to today's installment from the Biblical Conservatism Letter Bag!  As you know, we get comments here at Biblical Conservatism on a regular basis. Some of the time they're intelligent, well thought out points, whether agreeing or disagreeing. Other times, they're barely points at all, or really really stupid points...and so entertaining that I feel it's worth doing a response post. Today, we've got one of the latter:

We have a comment from the post Death of a Mailman (As a Career):

You have little knowledge of the United States Postal Serivce , that much is apparent, so I think you need some information reguarding the situtaion in the USPS that makes it not an industry but rather a Constitutional Madated Service that Congress is suppose to build not destroy. Up untl 2006, the USPS was based since 1970 on a break even profit, loss and raising stamps every 3 years. And it worked well that way from 1970 until 2006. It also had a pay as you go retirment system for its Postal Employees that worked well for over 300 some years in our county. In 2000, 2001, the Postal Employees were made to pay in 15 percent more to their retirement funds , knows as Civil Service Retirment System and Federal Employee Retirement System. This was merely to balance the deficit of the coutnry, in other words as the 2nd largest Employer and a Federal Agency, it was though that the workers checks could be raided to balance the money spent by Congress. It was not going towards retirement but merely to balance the deficit, this was approved and acknowldeged both by the President and legislators from both sides of the aisle. Then in 2003, Congress was informed of overpayments made to the retiremnt systems, some 103 billion to CSRS ( since the postal service had fully funded it by 55 billion and was being charged another 85 billion) then 15 billion is estimated to the FERS.

So then congress was informed that an overpayment had been made to the 2 retirmeent funds, and could of legislated that back, but instead made a 3rd retirment not required of any other business in the USA, by law. legislating away since 2006 was a banner year of profits from the USPS, about 5 billion a year from 2006 to 2016, Tell me what other industry can afford that? This in fact was caleld the Postal Accountiblity and Enhancement law, which also gave bonues to the top execof the USPS , knows as Post Master General to short staff, and cut it to the bone due to the 3rd payment. A dirrect attack on middle class working Americans who had been forced to pay in more to balance the deficit. I dont thin there is any other ocmpany , doing this including fedex and Ups, since they have reaped the beinfits and made more and have also lobbied senators to do this to the USPS which is under the constitution. So this all started in 2006, which you can read about at www.postalmag.com /joygoldberguspsstress.pdf or AWPU 3800 libarry online under stress in the workplace or ongoing violition of the usps guidelines is creating a toxic work environment, copywritten 2008.

from there you can go to bill burras journal.org online and read misc. scroll down to the elevator section and read, then go to ALEC/Koch Cabal the Privitization of the USPS for Ups and FedEx. and gain furhter understanding of the USPS being sold down the drian, the workers being mistreatd and not having workers replaced due to retirement, and other issues, like time clock rings and sucides due to non staffing, plus deaths on the routes for delevering your mail. A manafactured crisis by congress to destroy workers lives, how chrisitan is that, or American ? Go to www.savethepostoffice.com to read further. And as far as progress it sets our country back to 1912 before labor standards on the job existed.

Dear Mr. McFeely:

First of all, thank you for the Speedy Delivery. Secondly, if you're going to try to sound smart, you might want to visit the "libarry" to learn how to correct your "violition" of proper spelling and grammar.

Thirdly, and most importantly, you've got some really wrong concepts in your head. To start, the Constitution does not mandate the Post Office.  In the Constitution, Congress is granted the authority to "To establish Post Offices."  This is absolutely not the same thing as Congress being required to do it. As a matter of fact, the Constitution doesn't even require Congress to organize a national military. So yeah...not exactly "mandated."

Unfortunately for your beliefs, Mr. McFeely, the Post Office has lost it's usefulness.  We live in a free market country, and in that free market, two companies have risen up to be able to provide delivery of packages at a far more efficient level. Those companies are Federal Express (FedEx) and the United Parcel Service (UPS).  As a matter of fact, Congress has propped up the Post Office by disallowing FedEx and UPS from delivering letters as an option. 

Fact is there is really only a small handful industries that are best handled by government, and they are necessary protections like the police department and the military.  Considering that nobody's life, liberty or pursuit of happiness is protected by the Post Office, your argument holds zero water.  The only services that must be handled by the government are those that protect necessary freedoms. Otherwise, if a company cannot stand up to competition in the free market, they should be closing down.

Your comment about people committing suicide is just plain ridiculous. By your logic, nobody should every be fired from their job for fear that they might commit suicide.  I'm sorry, but losing one's job is often part of life. You apparently don't get how employment works. You see, a person sells their time and labor to a company.  They are paid for those services. The company does not owe anyone a job. Companies do not exist to give you a paycheck or to give you benefits. Businesses exist because an enterpeneur believes they can invest their money and make more than their investment back. They then often hire employees to help them create more products or service more people.

When a business is no longer making more money than they invest, that business closes down. Businesses become obsolete or become less successful than their competitors, they close down. It happens every day. The Post Office is no different. They are less efficient and delivering packages than FedEx and UPS, so they have lost the lion's share of that business. The Post Office has nobody to blame but themselves.

So, Mr. McFeely, I'm sorry that the Post Office has become obsolete, but it most certainly has due to it's own inefficiency. Besides, I think the displaced postal workers might find themselves a nice job working for FedEx or UPS once those companies are allowed to expand to deliver letters.