I never really understood how badly this country can function until the following example of how a group of Demo and Repub Congressmen fucked the US.
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<br>I have been heavily involved in monitoring and speaking with my industries efforts to reform the postal system. My company has actually committed over a million dollars earmarked for postal reform use to a lobbying group. Lets take just one issue the postal service is attempting to correct.
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<br>Curent Law says that if you are a retired military serviceman you receive a pension. This pension is paid by the US govt and is part of a military budget that is passed and voted on. Here is the catch..
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<br>..if after retiring from the Military you go to work for the postal service for any length of time a few things happen.
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<br>One is the USPS pays you a pension. 2nd is the USPS is now responsible for paying your military pension. Big deal you say since they both come out of the US Treasury eventually right? Wrong to an extent.
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<br>Here is what the copngressmen did. In that years budget or that period there wasnt enough cash in the budget for the PORK in there state that they promised to the people that funded their election so they put in a fix. They transfered the pension responsibility of retired Military working for the USPS onto the postal service. The USPS is not part of the federal budget therefore they stole from the US taxpayers to pay for there election. How did they steal? Because the Millions of dollars the USPS needed to make up for this added cost left them in the red. They then passed a rate case increase to make up for this red ink since the USPS postal union refused to make cuts. Direct mail suffered because postal budgets that were in place now had to pay a rate increase which lowered the piece count they could mail out to customers. This lowering of USPS volumes did what? Your right it raised there costs per M which caused more red ink. So the US treasury had to buck up and pay for it which was a cost not in any "BALANCED" budget or any budget. Adding to the deficit by creatively financing your own election is fucked.
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<br>PORK or ART as Stretch put it is whats wrong with this country. Our system is fractured and Congressmen and Presidents care less for doing what they were elected for and more on how not to be a ONE TERMER.
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<br>Recently Bush created a Presidential Commitee to study Postal Reform and that committee released its findings a month or so ago. Bush already signed into law a change in how the USPS factors its retirement which changed a mathmatical formula that would have costed the USPS nearly $30 billion for an accounting error. I believe it was HR 735 if you care to look it up. Imagine if the USPS had to raise rates on postage to pay for it. Imagine the volume of mail that would no longer be put thrugh the USPS, costing jobs at the USPS, Direct Mail houses, Ad agencies etc...
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<br>Government is full of this type of wrongdoings that I illustrated above. Check out the impact of HR 735 here
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http://www.cbo.gov/showdoc.cfm?index=4106&sequence=0<br>
<br>Now that Bush signed this into Law the net costs will have to be budgeted for rather than thrown on the US taxpayer by raising postal rates
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<br>[LoD]Couls
<br>Lord Shaved Plums
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<br>"If you shave them they will come"<P ID="edit"><FONT class="small"><EM>Edited by [LoD]Couls on 09/15/03 08:26 PM.</EM></FONT></P>
