Postmaster General John Potter
As the debate over health care reform boils over, both sides are now using the U.S. Postal Service to score points. House Minority Leader John Boehner, June 11:
If you like going to the DMV and think they do a great job, or you like going to the post office and think it’s the most efficient thing you’ve run into, then you’ll love the government-run health care system.
And President Barack Obama at this afternoon’s health care town hall meeting in Portsmouth, N.H., as reported by the Associated Press:
[Obama] also disputed the notion that adding a government-run insurance plan into a menu of options from which people could pick would drive private insurers out of business, in effect making the system single-payer by default.
As long as they have a good product and the government plan has to sustain itself through premiums and other non-tax revenue, private insurers should be able to compete with the government plan, Obama said.
“They do it all the time,” he said. “UPS and FedEx are doing just fine. … It’s the Post Office that’s always having problems.”
That sound you just heard was Postmaster General John Potter’s head hitting his desk.
There’s one man, however, who will stick up for the embattled Postal Service: Jon Stewart. Video after the jump:
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Heal or No Heal | ||||
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No Comments
What’s wrong with the postal service is not the government but the people they put in charge. They are largest group of idiots that have ever been developed. They would not make it in the private sector if they were told that all they had to dowas stand in a corner for eight hours to be a success. The good old boy system has ruined this company forever.
As a U S Postal Service employee of 29 years I am appalled and outraged by the vindictive words of our supposedly President of the United States Barack Obama! He has no business involving the Postal Service in the latest of his attacks. Maybe if he learned how this country was formed and truly cared about U S citizens he would learn to keep his sorry comments to himself. He is commenting on matters that he knows nothing about. How about fixing the economy President Obama!!!!!!!!
Just ANOTHER example of Obama using whomever and whatever he can to facilitate his sucess and his image. It will always be about about him. Sorry you got caught up in the ”CHANGE” thing.
I’m glad I didn’t vote for him. I’m a letter carrier and after hearing from the commander and chief how well our competition was doing it was a confimation of my vote.
The misinformation and propaganda surrounding the Postal Service is staggering. First off the USPS charges less to deliver a letter than any other postal service in any industrialized country. There’s only ONE problem with how the USPS is run. The government refuses to let them raise rates enough to pay for their expenses. Still since the USPS became a separate entity from the government (yes it’s true – the government doesn’t actually run the USPS) they have only needed funding from the government about three times and this is over a 30 year span. And the years they required funding were among the first years the USPS began operating as an independent entity.
People go insane over a 2 cent raise in the cost of mailing a letter even when gasoline went to $4 a gallon. The USPS has operated in the black despite such limitations. It’s only the advent of email being used as a substitute for mail to send out bills that has caused a problem. You’re talking about a huge loss of revenue for the USPS. It’s hardly about the people they put in charge. That kind of thinking is very juvenille in fact. How about addressing the facts before making a broad statement like that.
Not only does the USPS service the entire nation they do it charging far less for their services than companies like Fedex and UPS does. Go ahead and compare the price of sending a letter or a package through the USPS to sending the same letter or package through a private carrier. Then tell me the USPS is ineffecient.
The USPS was a great boon for this country especially after the avent of rural free delivery. Let’s see Fedex deliver packages to every remote spot in the country for half of what they charge currently. They’d be out of business in a month if they had to do that.
Yet through all this the USPS has continued to operate in the black until the past two years. If something took half of the business your company had do you think they wouldn’t have problems?
When you’re standing in line at the USPS thank a congressman for failing to allow postal rates to be increased so that more workers could be hired to do the job. Then go to Europe and compare what they pay for mail service.
I get really tired of people making the USPS the poster child for bad government management. Both parties do it but the fact is that we have the cheapest mail service in the world and they have operated with a profit for many years. If you want to see government management gone amuck look at HUD or other housing programs. It takes years to get funded for a HUD house while people sleep on the streets. Now that’s bad management. The USPS is a miracle of good management in fact. The record speaks for itself but of course people pay more attention to Jay and Dave than they do the facts in this country. If it gets a laugh it becomes truth to a lot of people. Now that’s funny.