~G.K. Chesterton

Maybe we should let the dying leave a list of who they want to vote for for the next 10 years. Mine would be easy, whoever is not the incumbent.

Can I get this as a car analogy?

There is "tax on postage" in Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Nebraska, New Jersey, North Dakota, Oklahoma and West Virginia.
Fortunately, it isn't in Massachusetts, or my Direct mail business would be in trouble. Do you use me for direct mail, and owe an extra 6.25% on the $200,000.00 in postage, or do you use a mail house in Connecticut, and only spend the $200,000.00?

We all know what this computer will really be used for. . .

I'll keep that in mind. I didn't mean the triple zero for cents in one, that was a typo.

I usually put the dollar amounts in long form because the last several years of U.S. budgets have desensitized most of us to "billions" and sometimes even "trillions." A billion dollars is a lot of money, and maybe if some people would remember that, we wouldn't have a budget deficit of $1,600,000,000,000.00.

You mean my ancient blog I forgot I even had? People grow up. People get jobs. I know it must shock you that we all don't live in our mother's basement like you, but such is life.

It is former Postal Employees, however it is a very muddy situation. The United State Postal Service used to be the United State Post Office Dept. At that point the Postmaster General was a cabinet position. During the 90s and ending in 2001, Congress passed postal "reform," which made the United States Postal Service, a private company with a government monopoly on letter mail. The USPS is governed by the Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC), who interpret the postal reform passed by congress.

I posted all that as background for this next part.
Because of all these changes, some employees are under different pensions and healthcare systems than others. The first pension system is over funded (by govt. mandate) by around $70,000,000.00. This money was put into the general govt. retiree pension fund, which was spent by congress years ago. Newer USPS employees are part of a different pension/healthcare fund. Congress mandated that this fund be fully funded before 2020. That meant the USPS had to set aside about $5,500,000.00 a year for a decade to fund retirees that won't retire until 2040. Because the money goes to congress, the budget deficit seems smaller every year the USPS pays. So the USPS has 2 pension funds (more than that really, but this is the simple explanation). One is massively over funded, but stolen by congress. The other has an unsustainable funding schedule to make congress's budget deficit seem smaller.

The USPS is actually in the very unenviable position of being required to lose money to subsidize the rest of the Federal Govt. Several examples:

Congress sets the amount of money that the USPS has to pay into its pension and healthcare funds. This money is "held is trust" by congress (i.e. was spent 5 years before it came in.). The USPS has been forced to over pay for pension and retiree healthcare costs by over $80,000,000,000.00. Most of the $7,000,000,000.00 loss this year comes from an $5,000,000,000.000 payment into the retiree health benefits fund. In fact the USPS would have been profitable in the last 8 out of 10 years if it wasn't forced to subsidize congress's spending binges.

Congress requires the USPS to give rates to Non-profits that are below cost. Theoretically, congress is supposed to pay the difference, but hasn't for 17 years.

Periodicals (Time, WSJ, People ect) get preferential rates because of the lobbying power of the press. If I mail a 2.1 oz flat at presort standard rates (after putting the data through the national change of address database, something not required of periodicals) the lowest rate I could possible get is $0.194 per piece. I only get that rate if I bring it to the Sectional Center Facility where the mail will be sorted, and I presort it to the sequence the carrier walks in, and have pieces going to 90% of the residents on the route. That same piece going periodical rate only pays $0.16 for faster service.

I'm not denying that the USPS has problems of its own making it needs to deal with. It caved to the unions far to much in the past, giving it a very expensive workforce that thinks it constantly battling the evil management.

All of this comes from many years in the mail service provider industry. I'm not Aunt Edna that mails 3 birthday cards a year, and thinks that entitles her to complain that the Post Office in town is closing, even though it is within 2 miles of other Post Offices. I do multi-million dollar postage amounts every year. I am on first name basis with several USPS VPs.

C

That's something we'd really miss if they left. . .

Well, he was elected. . .linkity, and he is the head of the Catholic Church, so he does have the authority to remind Catholics to behave online. As for the other ad-hominems, I'll just leave them alone.