Friday, September 27, 2013
What excellent timing
Immediately following on the heels of Matt Tibbi's article on the theft of public employees pensions, we have another example of the Class War on Workers. Senators Tom "Blue Dog" Carper and Dr. No himself, Tom Coburn have introduced a bill, allegedly to "help" the Post Office.
Congress is considering legislation that would revamp the Postal Service’s operations; if it passes, the proposed rate increase might be dropped. The chairman and the ranking member of the committee, Sens. Thomas Carper, D-Del., and Tom Coburn, R-Okla., introduced the Postal Reform Act of 2013 in August.All of which is unnecessary. The postal service is prefunded for years into the future, why modify (read reduce) benefits when removal of the prefunding requirement and returning to normal business procedure would solve the problem. And restoring a portion of the prefunded amounts would eliminate the necessity of the other "solutions". But none of that would help to destroy the union, so theyare non-starters.
“Dr. Coburn and I believe that our bipartisan bill provides a road map to enable the Postal Service to return to profitability, not just in the near term, but to remain there in the long term,” Carper said. “If that happens, the rate request will go away. If it doesn’t happen, the rate request is there staring us and the Postal Service in the face.”
Among other things, the legislation would save the Postal Service money by modifying health care benefits and pensions for postal workers. It also would change postal delivery options, including the eventual discontinuation of Saturday delivery. Other measures would require centralized or curbside delivery for new addresses and the option for existing addresses to convert from door delivery to centralized or curbside delivery.
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