Posted on 08/02/2012 2:32:53 AM PDT by iowamark
Without help from Congress, the Postal Service will not only default on payments for retiree health care benefits, but it could lack cash for operations by mid-October.
As of midnight Wednesday, the Postal Service will be in default -- for the first time in its history -- on a $5.5 billion payment owed the federal government to prepay health care benefits for retirees.
While the Postal Service is in big financial trouble due to fewer people sending mail and the mandate to prepay retiree benefits, the default is largely symbolic. The agency will skip that payment and another $5.6 billion payment due Sept. 30, while continuing to pay employees and contractors to deliver the mail on time.
However, by Oct. 15, the agency's cash crunch could result in a $100 million shortfall, according to David C. Williams, the service's inspector general.
"We concur with the Postal Service's projections that it might not have sufficient cash to fund its operations in October 2012 and at other times during Fiscal Year 2013," Williams wrote in a July 25 memo.
The timing is significant, because experts don't expect Congress to make much headway on saving the Postal Service until after the November election. While the Senate passed a bill in April, the House has yet to take up its version.
If the Postal Service runs out of money in October, it may be brief, according to the service and the inspector general's office. The service is expecting an uptick in mail volume and revenue thanks to the 2012 presidential election and the holiday season to help make ends meet.
(Excerpt) Read more at money.cnn.com ...
So lets see the Postal Workers Union runs commercials telling the sheeple that all of their service is free, and cost nary a tax payer dollar, then defaults on pension payments and is still scheduled to go under in October.
Sell it to the highest bidder and be done with it, under the conditions that the union be decertified. These folks are the General Motors/UAW of the Federal Government. If walmart can get t done...SOLD!
Congress has known for almost eighteen months that this day was coming. The best they could do? Rename roughly thirty post offices. Yeah, that’s it.
The Saturday closure business, that the vast majority of us would readily accept? No....Congress won’t let it go through. The closure of thousands of post offices which make a marginal amount of business? Nope....can’t let that happen. So we’ve deadlocked ourselves.
Here’s the worst part. Come November...there might be a Republican house, a 50-50 cut in the Senate, and Obama still in office. Getting anything fixed? Forget about it. By spring of 2013, we will all be miserable, hostile and economically negative for at least four more years.
Be sure to send a “Thank You!” card to the Postal Workers Union, kkthx. /s =.=
Understand that “defaulting on pension payments” is not making the pre-payment on retirees that haven’t been born yet. Congress mandated in ‘06, I think, that the USPS prefund the retirement system out to 75 years. It is THIS that is causing the USPS to “lose” all this money. AND we’re not supposed to show a profit.
Us postal workers sure get a bad rap around here. Imagine running a business that isn’t supposed to show a profit. But every time you show a loss, it makes headlines. Congress forces the USPS into a condition that causes “losses” and we’re in the news. But if we aren’t losing money, no one ever cheers and we don’t make the headlines.
Freepers are some of the worst offenders of not getting this.
I have really mixed feelings about the Post Office. However setting those aside I Think much of it can be fixed. It may take a company like UPS or FED-EX to show them how to do so though.
One way that comes to mind is to issue a government contract where the Prospective company will pay the Government to run the Postal Service for Hmmm, say ten years at a time. If they make a profit it’s theirs to keep if they have a loss it’s theirs to eat. The Government has a steady income stream from the Company running the Postal Service no matter what.
That’s what happens when you promise ridiculously extravagant pensions.
Works for me. The only mail I send pony express is tax payments.
I can understand that you like those big government paychecks. But don’t expect those of us paying the bill to like it as much as you do.
USPS is being used as a whipping boy.
The USPS should just make its payments in postage stamps. I could even see collectors bidding for the rare $1,000,000,000 stamps.
1) Bill for the Democratic Republic of Congo
2) Naming a post office
As a state senator, I do believe he also submitted a bill recognizing a local Islamic center in Chicago. Also one of the only bills he ever sponsored that passed.
The post office needs to be replaced with a private organization, period. I’m sure *some* of the postal workers would be rehired, but you know, “sacrifices” have to be made.
Well, that shouldn't be difficult. As you know, the USPS has it history of human sacrifice.
I wonder how this will work on those pesky absentee ballots? Or, will the military ballots simply not happen?
Postal workers are widely perceived by the American public as overpaid, lazy slackers, with the same moral and mental stability as the Aurora shooter. And bailouts have become about as popular as a resistant strain of the clapp.
So if Obama wants to bail ‘em out right before the election, I say, go for it!
Lets see the postal service will lose 12B this year and 10B is advanced pension payments. You do the math sir. The postal service has been losing money for years. Oh and the Post office is defaulting on the first of 2 pension payments so I don’t understand yoir point.
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