It is no secret that the United States Postal Service has been facing a fiscal crisis of sorts for some time. Although this seems to be rather underreported, the USPS seems to be steadily marching towards the end of its very own existence. Contrary to popular belief, the crisis that is being faced by the Post office is not because of an increase in Internet usage. Nor is it as a result of an incredulous amount of fraud waste and abuse by the service. It is single handedly due to the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006 (PAEA) which forces the service to pay for 75 years of future health care benefit payments withing a single decade time span. This act, which was and Is clearly an impossible task to achieve, has forced a man made budgeting crisis onto the Post office.
In addition, no other government organization is subject to such an incredible mandate. Combined with the partisanship and the incredible amount of money involved with all sectors of the government, this act seems to be a concerted attack on the service. This service has been available since 1775, and is thought to be a mandatory service to be provided by the government to the people. And until we can materialize products from sites such as Amazon.com through our computer, we still need these services for our shipping needs. The most sickening part of all of this is that the post office would have been in the black (meaning would have brought in a profit) but for the rather insane act that they are required to abide by.
To solve this “deficit problem”, there have been numerous entities, representatives, and senators who have suggested that we move to privatize these services. Combined with this act, this would mean that all Americans would be beholden to private corporations for every form of their postage needs. If the USPS is allowed to fall this means that people (obviously) will be forced to pay more, whilst these corporations would be allowed to maximize their profits. Corporations ultimate mandate is to make as much profit as possible, by any and all means necessary. I do wonder what Benjamin Franklin, the first postmaster general and one of THE "founding fathers", would say to all of this.
Source: http://www.democracynow.org/2012/8/1/as_us_postal_service_faces_default
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