Reference: Tom Schneider's “Privatize postal operation for optimal outcome.” 3-4-10 Indianapolis Star [see bottom]
The suggestion that privatization is the solution to the problems of the postal service is a knee jerk reaction to any problem identified in the public sector. What private company could take on the role of delivering mail to every address in the country? None.
If you allowed privatization of delivery by geographic areas what company is going to deliver mail to 174 addresses along a 176 mile route in North Dakota? None.
If you allowed the privatization of the revenue generating portions of the system how would the non-revenue producing portions [plants and transportation] be funded? The only way to do so would to be to put them back on the tax roles. Something that hasn't happened in decades.
As far as the thousands of facilities that would go back on the tax roles many of them are leased. Most are aged and located in neighborhoods where they are the only business structure. This means they would most likely be vacant and a liability to local taxpayers not an asset.
Privatization wouldn't guarantee an 'optimal outcome' or stable stamp prices, it would only guarantees lower wages and the need for elevated revenues to satisfy the profit motive. Do you want a minimum wage transient work force handling your credit cards and personal information?
No Private company could deliver the mail if burdened by the mandates placed upon the Postal Service by Congress such as the $5 billion annual requirement to pre-fund certain obligations. Return the $75 billion dollars the Postal service has overpaid into one of those mandated funds and let the U. S. Postal Service do what it has done for 235 years better than any country or business, deliver the mail.
Unfortunately when government officials buy into privatization this is what you get. When someone floats the idea of privatization if the public accepts the idea it is because the public has already become dissatisfied with the service in question. If the public dismisses the idea then the privatizers go to plan B, which is to sabotage the agency to the point that the public becomes dissatisfied enough to eventually buy into the privatization of the agency. This is accomplished by burdening the agency with restrictive funding, diminished services and goals, increased obligations, busting the union and destroying the morale of the workforce. Sound familiar?
The trial balloon of five day delivery has been floated several times since the Reagan administration and every time the public has rejected it. Now under the cover of low volume and a recession the public has been numbed by one financial crisis after another and is barely making a peep on this balloon.
Don't think that there are privatizers in the Postal Service who go along with Congressional Republicans on privatization? Remember Potter's predecessor Henderson? Six months after retirement he was making promoting privatization. GlennDL
