And rightly so. Last week, Donahoe laid out a plan that would destroy the Postal Service as most Americans know it. And the destruction would be not out of necessity, but to perpetuate an austerity lie. The supposed financial crisis facing the Postal Service is a fantasy.
The agency - which continues to provide vital services to 150 million households and business a day, sustains rural and urban communities across the country as a Main Street mainstay, employs hundreds of thousands of Americans, and has a history of being in the forefront of technological and societal progress - is not in trouble because of competition from the Internet or changing letter-writing patterns. It is in trouble because Congress forced it to pay roughly $5.5 billion a year into a trust fund for future retiree pensions.
The Postal Service's inspector general says it has overfunded pension obligations by $75 billion, something no other federal agency is required to do. In addition, it has been slapped with other charges and obligations that make it appear to be headed for bankruptcy. Simply treating it fairly when it comes to the prepayment of pensions would ease most of the burden.
But Congress is dithering, the for-profit mail services that want to carve up the Postal Service are salivating, and the postmaster general is surrendering, with a brutal cost-cutting proposal that could:
So slow down first-class mail delivery as to create an opening for private carriers. Indeed, Americans are almost being pushed into the arms of UPS and FedEx.
Cause as many as 100,000 job losses. Postal job cuts hit people of color, women, and veterans hardest, as the agency has a long history of hiring a workforce that "looks like America." The proposed closing of more than 250 of 561 postal sorting centers is the equivalent of a wave of factory closings.
