Last call for Saturday mail, folks.

[phantom power]

The financially struggling U.S. Postal Service says it plans to stop delivering mail on Saturdays, but continue delivering packages six days a week.

In an announcement scheduled for later Wednesday, the service is expected to say the cut, beginning in August, would mean a cost saving of about $2 billion annually.

Let’s recall why the USPS is struggling: because Republicans in Congress forced the agency to pay their retiree health care costs decades down the road up front in 2006, then refused to give them the money to do that. As a result, the USPS made massive workforce cuts and forced thousands into early retirement, which of course means the USPS has to pay those health care benefits up front, putting them into a death spiral.

...It’s like the government came to you and said “OK, you’re 25 years old, but you have to pay for every dime of your Medicare that we project you will use for the next ten years, rather than over the next 40 years. We’ll be docking half of your paycheck until you get to that number. Good luck paying your rent or feeding your kids.”

Also, let’s remember who lost the roughly 160,000 jobs since the PAEA was passed: middle-class civil service workers, a disproportionate amount of them African-American.

...

So yeah, part of me feels like going postal on just about everybody in DC. This was one of those “self-inflicted wounds” to the economy that President Obama was talking about yesterday, and not a hell of a lot happened to try to fix it. Ironically, it’s postal service in rural areas that will be cut back the most because of these changes, but this was a needless anchor thrown around the neck of the USPS, and nobody in DC threw them a lifeline when the opportunity was there. Postal jobs aren’t sexy.

See ya, Saturday mail. It was cool while it lasted.

http://www.balloon-juice.com/2013/02/06/going-postal-on-the-mofo/#more-125119

[NV Whino]

1. I've never gotten Saturday mail where I live

I get Sunday mail in Adventistville.

[sketchy]

2. Thank you! And here's a link to

another good thread in progress in GD:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022321264


And one in LBN:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014391735