Letter to the Editor: Real story
BY Wanda Jo Stapleton, Oklahoma City
Sunday, February 24, 2013
2/24/13 at 7:41 AM
The Post Office isn't broke; it's robbed. Our mail will no longer be delivered on Saturdays, beginning in August.
Why? In 2006, a Republican-controlled Congress and President George W. Bush approved the "Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act." This law required that by 2016, the Post Office must pre-pay postal service retirees' health-care benefits for the next 75 years. That includes future benefits for employees not yet hired, even not yet born!
That impossibility began a suicidal spiral intended to kill the U.S. Postal Service and privatize its services.
The craze for privatization began with President Ronald Reagan's famous statement: "Government IS the problem." Privatization - called "free enterprise" - would get the post office out of our mail boxes and hand mail service over to private entities like Fed Ex and UPS. Goal of these private businesses is profit, not public service, and there's no profit in serving rural areas.
The U.S. Post Office pays its way by selling stamps and other products and has not taken any tax dollars since 1971.
The fault lies with Congress, which created the financial disaster, described above.
It's time for Congress to read the U.S. Constitution, which says: "Congress shall have the power to establish Post Offices (Article 1, Section 8)." That doesn't mean destroy post offices.
Editor's note: Stapleton is served as a state representative from 1986-1996.
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