General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Congress is being bribed to kill the Postal Service. Even though they do better than FedEx or UPS. [View all]George II
(67,782 posts)... in the first example, Susan Collins.
In the 2001 to 2006 cycle she raised $4.6M for her campaign, UPS gave her $22,000. That's less than 1/2 of one percent of all the money she raised. No mention of the $10,000 that FedEx gave her, which is less than 1/4 of one percent.
What about that other 99.25%? One would think they'd have to come up with more than that in order to "bribe" her.
The second example is even more extreme - Joe Lieberman. In the 2001-2006 election cycle he raised more than $20M, but only $5000 from FedEx. That's .025%! That's a "bribe"?
I'm not sticking up for either of these two politicians, but neither of those two politicians could be considered "in the pocket" of either UPS or FedEx.
To put the Lieberman "bribe" in perspective, let's say I get stopped by a cop for speeding, and the ultimate fine would be $200. I decide to "bribe" the cop to not write the ticket. The amount of the "bribe"? A NICKEL!!!
By the way, do you have any idea of the magnitude of free postage from USPS for Congressmen and Senators during their terms? Wouldn't you call those "bribes" too? I'd be willing to bet that it's higher than the combined contributions from UPS and FedEx.
I repeat, the subject line of that blog post was WAY over the top and extreme.