Will There Be A Post Office Bailout?
by Big Dog on Jun 22, 2011 at 22:03 Opinion
The postal service is a Constitutional item that is run by the federal government and it is run like a typical government bureaucracy, that is, there is a lot of waste and a lot of overhead and a lot of cost overrun. The kicker is that the postal service actually charges for its service and should, if run properly, be able to pay its bills. Unfortunately that is not the case. The postal service is billions in the red and has suspended its share of retirement contributions for its employees.
Will Congress and Barack Obama step in and bailout the postal service? The government already believes that it has the authority to force you to buy products. Obamacare mandates that we all buy health insurance and the Democrats stand by that generous and incorrect interpretation of the Commerce Clause of the Constitution. The Democrats assure us that health care is unique because everyone will, at one time in their lives, enter the health care system so it is OK, according to them, to make people buy insurance.
What would stop the Democrats from making the same argument about the postal service? Everyone at one point in their lives gets some sort of mail. What would stop Congress from forcing us to use the postal service or force us to buy a certain dollar amount of postage stamps each month? Maybe Congress will decide that in order to boost postal revenue all online bill paying activities must stop and people have to mail their bills in. Maybe they will take down the email contacts for all members of Congress and make us send them letters via the postal service.
It is not unreasonable to assume that the government could force us to use the postal system citing the Commerce Clause like it did with Obamacare.
I would not put it past them to step in and screw over the taxpayers in order to make the postal service solvent.
There is nothing that prevents the government from moving the postal service to the private sector. The Constitution says Congress has the authority to establish post offices and postal roads (which actually means they don’t have to but have the power to) but it does not say that Congress (or the government) must run the post offices and postal roads. Congress could establish the post offices under the private sector and let that company compete for business against other similar services. Congress would have oversight and a portion of the revenue could go to the Treasury.
In any event, I would not put it past the Democrats and their messiah to try to bailout the postal service by putting into place policies that would force people to use the service.
Let’s face it, we are losing more and more freedom so it is not hard to imagine this taking place.
Then again, perhaps they could start reducing the number of employees, increase the amount employees contribute to their pensions, force them to pay the same rate for insurance as the rest of the federal employees (contrary to popular opinion, federal employees pay quite a bit for their health insurance), and stop delivering mail on Saturday. They could also cut the number of post offices and consolidate routes. Greater efficiency would help the bloated system to be more solvent.
Then again, why do all that when Congress could force us to use them.
Be wary. The Socialists in our government would love to intrude even more into our lives.
Cave Canem!
Never surrender, never submit.
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Tags: bailout, bankrupt, budget, commerce, postal service
Interesting ideas. I’m not sure they could force us to USE the post office. Instead, as they’re doing with Obamacare, I imagine they’ll force us to PAY for it, whether we use it or not. I can see a “temporary” solution. They’ll have to invent a new word, as “quantitative easing” and “bailout” are already in play. Maybe a “temporary support” will be called for.
Quite simply, it will be a new tax. Oh, it won’t be called that. They’ll just print more money and use that. Heck, this time they might not even try and invent a way to pay for it. Then again, they might just tack another tax on cell phone bills, that seems to be a popular place to raise taxes.
Of course the simplest, best, and most liberty-minded solution would be just to cut 100% of government funding for all post office activities. If we’re supposed to be so “progressive” and “evolving” in so many other areas, how about advancing here? Since the government is so good at decided what everyone “needs,” how about they decide that no one truly “needs” postal service. Oh, right, there’s unions involved. Never mind, just keep printing money. It’s not really worth anything anymore anyway.
But don’t you see, Mr. O- we couldn’t (in a progressive’s eyes) cut the PO away from the government- that would make government smaller, and progressives just can’t stand that-
Well if your main income comes from working at the Post Office, your screwed anyways. Oops that would be me. My husband works with the post office and is being told that they may not have the money to get paid next month. So weather the government decides to increase taxes, force us to use the Post Office or lay off thousands of employees and cut Saturdays, nothing looks very good from my end. I would love to say that I hope things will get solved in a way that helps out both ends but that just doesnt exist anymore. These are difficult economic times and we have no choice but to hustle hustle hustle!!! Thank you for the article.