Postal Service may get short-term financial help

[Savoir Faire-Demogague in NJ]

www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5ibAuzAft5OpSqZ7ih-XffYexIbnA?docId=0540665896a64f15a218df12df4de341

WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House may pull the Postal Service back from the brink of insolvency, at least for a few months.

Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe reports the agency will be unable to make a required $5.5 billion payment to the Treasury at the end of September.

But the Office of Personnel Management says the White House may delay the payment for 90 days as part of a larger economic package in the works.

Postal spokeswoman Yvonne Yoerger said she had no details of the plan and that a long-term solution will still be needed.

Copyright © 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved

[AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP]

This is a great example of the GOP leading reforms to protect workers, and the liberal objection to it. The Nation writer, John Nichols, says the USPS isn't broke- it's only broke because they can't raid the pension fund of workers. Oh, like Congress raided Social Security?

I sometimes wonder if these people can hear themselves?

And yet, unionized postal workers continue to support liberals that would jeopardize their retirement all so we can declare the USPS 'solvent' and let it go on wasting billions a year.

Then of course when the bill comes due for their pension it'll be bailout time.

Ridiculous!

www.thenation.com/blog/166103/post-office-not-broke

The postal service, we are told, is broke.

There’s only one problem with this diagnosis.

It’s wrong.

The postal service is not broke.

At the behest of the Republican-controlled Congress of the Bush-Cheney era, the USPS has been forced since 2006 to pre-fund future retiree health benefits. As the American Postal Workers Union notes, “This mandate is the primary cause of the agency’s financial crisis. No other government agency or private company bears this burden, which costs the USPS approximately $5.5 billion annually.”

Now, however, we learn that the pre-funding requirements have taken so much money from the USPS that—according to the postal service’s own inspector general—it has “significantly exceeded” the level of reserved money that the federal government or private corporations divert to meet future pension and retiree healthcare demands. “Using ratepayer funds, it has built a war chest of over $326 billion to address its future liabilities,” acknowledges Postal Service Inspector General David C. Williams.

That, argues US Senator Bernie Sanders, puts “the rationale for postal cuts in doubt.”

Sanders, who has taken the lead in challenging cuts to the USPS and who requested the assessment by Williams, says that on the basis of information contained in the assessment, the Postal Service should be released from the “onerous and unprecedented burden” of being forced to put $5.5 billion every year into its future retiree health benefits fund. Sanders’s office explains that “even if there are no further contributions from the post office, and if the fund simply collects 3.5 to 4 percent interest every year, that account will be fully funded in twenty-one years.” At the same time, the senator suggests, the postal service should be allowed to recover more than $13 billion in overpayments it has made to a federal retirement systems.

Maybe no other public or private entity is required to pre-fund pensions-- but maybe they should be? After all, especially when it comes to government, but in general-- if someone is promising to pay you later-- much later, then don't you want to see that along the way they are taking steps to be in a position to pay what they owe you? Don't you want to see they are setting aside the money NOW?

[Savoir Faire-Demogague in NJ]

Maybe no other public or private entity is required to pre-fund pensions-- but maybe they should be? After all, especially when it comes to government, but in general-- if someone is promising to pay you later-- much later, then don't you want to see that along the way they are taking steps to be in a position to pay what they owe you? Don't you want to see they are setting aside the money NOW?

To say no public or private entity does not or is not required to fund pensions is a flat out lie.