Posted on 06/21/2013 7:51:53 PM PDT by Colonel Kangaroo
House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) is reaching out across the aisle for suggestions on his new discussion draft to revamp the U.S. Postal Service (USPS).
Issa released the discussion draft last week, in an attempt to broaden the support for his efforts at postal reform. And in a "Dear Colleague" letter aimed at Democrats, the California Republican says that “while the challenges are great, I strongly believe that the Postal Service is a government institution worth saving.”
“While we may not agree on every issue in how to save the Postal Service, I do believe that we all want to see a healthy, thriving Postal Service and I am committed to do what I can to see that reform is enacted this Congress,” Issa wrote in the letter, a copy of which was obtained by The Hill.
“For that reason, I wanted to reach out to members and request feedback on the discussion draft in hopes of finding areas where we can expand on our agreement and improve the legislation.”
Some Democrats working on postal reform initially cast a skeptical note on Issa’s discussion draft, with the ranking member at Oversight, Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), saying he had “serious reservations.” But both Cummings and Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), the chairman of the Senate Homeland Security panel, also applauded Issa for moving the ball forward on postal reform.
Issa, Carper and Cummings all took part in bipartisan negotiations on postal reform that fell short at the end of the last Congress. The USPS has lost billions of dollars in recent years, including roughly $3 billion in the first six months of fiscal 2013.
Issa’s postal bill passed the Oversight Committee last Congress, but then never hit the House floor – at least in part because GOP leaders saw it as a tough vote politically.
The California Republican’s newest effort rolls back some of the more controversial proposals from his previous bill, including provisions that could have led to the agency being placed in receivership and formed a new commission to recommend post office closures.
It also scraps the annual prepayments, of around $5.5 billion, for future retiree healthcare, a requirement that unions and Democrats have particularly gotten worked up about.
But the plan would also do away with Saturday letter delivery while keeping package delivery, a growing part of the USPS’s business. Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe tried to implement a similar plan this year before backing off amid congressional opposition.
Democrats and unions have said that cutting any service would be a mistake. Issa’s new discussion draft also keeps a proposal that scraps future no-layoff agreements.
Unfortunate for the USPS the first two words of their name are something Hussein hates with all his lil dog eatin homo loving heart.
I guess Issa didn’t like what conservatives told him on twitter. Go private,finally make a profit and no unions.
I think the largest employer of military veterans just has too much broad-based support to be privatized, including among conservatives.
That WOULD BE an ideal solution, but think of the huge dent that would put in union dues to the DemocRAT party? And private control would never tolerate paying people to deliberately do NOTHING, then collect a lifetime pension when they retire.
All the mail that people receive, whether it's letters or packages, has to be handled by somebody. It doesn't move itself, and manhandling 70 lb mail sacks and heavy packages eight hours a day isn't a picnic. I'll admit that some postal employees don't pull their weight, but others pull their weight and more. They have to do their own work and also the work of their coworkers.
>> Go private
USPS is in a way private by virtue of its source of revenue.
The patient has been in the ICU for years with multi-system failure, on a ventilator, with a Glasgow Coma Scale of 2, bedsores to the bone on all limbs and along the spine, with an amp & gent drip for the septicemia. EEG is flat. Has been since 1996.
The heart is kept going with a pacer, and with a number of pressors via a central line, barely keeping the systolic above zero. The patient’s got a feeding tube, a urinary catheter, and a rectal tube (but still requires manual disimpaction every few days).
The organ donor committee discussed him once long ago: the unanimous consensus was, “I don’t THINK so!”
A family member came by last decade, but will no longer answer when the hospital calls.
The patient is both disabled, and considered a performance artist, and, as such, landed another generous grant last month from the National Endowment for the Arts.
The Feds think the patient is worth saving, and is just as likely to perform a vital federal function as any Democratic voter, dead or alive.
All the mail that people receive,...
My mailbox was full every day this week and every speck of it was advertising and went straight into the trash. They could begin by charging first class rates for everything. Then maybe we wouldn’t get so much crap - like pages and pages of grocery ads. They can be put on the net and people can look them up there.
As a counterpoint, USPS may see a resurgence as the scope of NSA snooping impacts the general population. A bit easier to detect if an envelope has been compromised in contrast to a digital communication that gets stored in in a facility in Utah.
Typical...They try to give adrenaline shots while, simultaneously, shooting the patient. The internet sales tax is enough to kill the usps small pkg business with businesses shutting down and people returning to B&M stores, which soon will be fully staffed with new “Rubio’s”.
Contract it out: get twice the service for half the price. Snail mail is a fading antique.
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