On his Facebook page Florida Rep. Dennis Ross wrote:
Just a tip for any USPS Union Member reading this facebook page. If you think I have not had dozens and dozens of meetings with your leadership, don’t know the issues facing the USPS, and do not have a Ranking Member whose judgment and experience I value – you are as blindly partisan as you accuse me of being. The “debate” I have had with some members does not help those of your colleagues who are civilized people.
Regarding USPS prefunding of retirement Mr. Ross said…
The USPS did not “overpay” any bill. It was required to prefund retirement. I will grant that prefunding is rare, but not unheard of. Nor should it be out of the ordinary. Prefunding protects future retirees and is more cost effective in… the long run. But in the end, USPS retirement and health benefits have the guarantee of the taxpayer. To NOT prefund is to toss that risk more to the taxpayer. But all the prefunding argument is meaningless if the USPS continues to operate at labor costs of 80% of revenues. 1st class mail is going, going, and will be gone in the future. Either USPS changes its business model (and yes, reduces staffing), or the taxpayers will demand it be privatized or sold. That is reality.
Check out his Facebook page here – oh yeah, please let him know your thoughts. PEN Ed.
Same old crap…Congresspeople are under same retirement system as USPS,which is FERS.However,members of Congress receive 70% more in retirement annuity!And that is just for the basic annuity payment;the details in determining if,when,how much,etc. in retirement are waaaaaay more lenient for the fat,dishonest,crooked,dopes in Congress!Why is this so?Hint:Congress wrote the law which enacted FERS(Federal Employees Retirement System)!The politicians have legalized corruption!
H.R. 2309 is a boondoggle and a robbery, can I pick both. To Bad as a freshman representative Dennis Ross does not know when he is heading straight over a cliff. How much support does this bill have, Issa and himself, and it passed a sub-commitee. Wow, good luck with your future endevours, your political career will be short. Especially with your lies about the condition of the Postal Service. I notice you still do not mention the absurd mandate by congress for the USPS to prefund it’s retirement system for 75 years over a ten year period and conclude that this will protect thet future of the retiress, while at the same time, you are trying to end that future, job eliminations and health cost raises. You are a sheep following your parties talking points. Get your facts right next time.
Read HR2309. Two entities will be established. First the Commission on Postal Regulation which will be funded with $20,000,000 from Postal Service Funds. The second entity is established during control periods (ie. USPS defaults on obligations to Treasury). This will be the (hold your breath) Postal Service Financial Responsibility and Management Assistance Authority and will be funded from $10,000,000 of Postal Funds. Nowhere in this act, except for the discontinuation of bargaining rights and loss of benefits and reduction in delivery days, do either of these entities require anything more than the already established Postal Regulatory Commission and the US Congress. It’s a boondoggle or a robbery. Take your pick.
I too would like to know exactly what other federal agency or private corporation is required to prefund the retiree health benefits for employees that have not been a) hired yet or b) born yet.
As long as we have Congress and the Postal Big Wigs deciding our future we have nothing to worry about. Two wrongs will make it right. Right?
“labor costs of 80% of revenues”, yes this probably needs to be reduced by 20-30%; however, let’s be fair about fully funding 70 years of retiree’s health care in 10 years at 5.5 billion a year. I believe congress uses this money as a slush fund and only uses the excuse of inflating the deficit.
How about cking into Congresses retirement packages and there healthcare packages. Ross needs to look in the mirror and ck see whos scamming the goverment! Another politian on a free ride. I hope it ends soon!
Mr Ross for once think about working people instead of all your campaign donors.
bet you don.t mind giving tax breaks to corporations do you get any money from ups or fedex
i knew ross was an ***hole when i saw his questioning of donahoe and guffy
in some house hearing. he was real cordial towards donahoe and asked him about the pay for performance bonus “program.” asking donahoe how his employees liked it? for those of you that don’t know the pay for performance bonus program is an unethical scheme hatched by postal management that
gives them bonus money no matter what. this scheme paid out bonus money to supervisors and above each and every year, the last four fiscal years. the post office claimed losses of $20 BILLION DOLLARS during this four year period but the bonuses were paid out like we were making huge profits. now an honest , ethical politician may question donahoe about the bonuses but when he finds out the bonuses were paid out with 20 billion dollar losses you would expect some reaction like:mr donahoe, how could you pay out one nickel in bonus money to your buddies while the post office was losing billions of dollars each year? and you did this four years in a row?! i’m going to demand an investigation of this fraud! remember, that might be an honest politicians response. ***hole crooked DENNIS ROSS thinks the bonus payouts were wonderful and
wonders why the stinking unions wouldn’t go along with some bonus program.
of course, anyone with a brain knows that the goals or bar for craft employees to get bonuses would be set so high it workers would have to work like dogs to get a bonus AND NOT ONE FREAKING PENNY OF BONUS MONEY WOULD BE PAID OUT TO CRAFT EMPLOYEES IF THE POST OFFICE WAS LOSING MONEY!
DENNIS ROSS YOU ARE AN ***HOLE! oh yeah, and by the way. the postal service went to federal court to keep the details of exactly who got how much in bonus money a secret. they refused to release the figures. hmmm. i smell
fraud here and an attempt at a coverup. unfortunately, the only people to investigate the post office bonus scheme is congress and the office of inspector general.
i won’t hold my breath for that as i believe they are both also inundated with fraud and corruption.
Dennis Ross. I have read that you run on Christian and family values. True Christians do not spread lies! Stop lying to America! I love my USPS!
Mr. Ross;
You suggest that Postal Service be privatized. Fine, let the USPS charge market rates! I received an article from an on-line business that cost $33.50. Fed Ex charged $16.08 to deliver; nearly 50% of the cost of the item.
I had items from another on-line company that cost $42.08; the USPS charged $2.98 to deliver.
Tell your constituents how much you pay for your political mailings. I’m guessing it’s not the $1.00 per letter that the Canadian and Japanese private post offices charge. It’s probably “free”. Of course, I assume your corporate backers will gladly give you “free” service if they believe you will vote in their favor.
Ask Fed-Ex and whoever you have lined up to deliver mail if they would be willing to deliver “free” mail to our troops serving in war zones.
You state that the pre-funding is not unheard of. Please cite examples.
Ross your lost! We have plenty of mail here in OKC, I run 190k evry night. When you close those Fla offices SOON! I’m sure the votes will be coming in for you. Anyway they are still hiring PSE’s there , come give it a try on the night shift and tell me we’re overpayed. Later LOSER
Thank you for saying that while prefunding rare, but not unheard of. I would to know what other organization or private company has to prefund their pensions, What does the Post office have to prefund the pesion for 75 years over a periond of 10 years, with payments of 5.5 billion dollars a years over the last four years. That totals over 20 billions dollars which is the exact amount that the Postal Service is in the red over the last four years. You say that prefunding protects future retirees and is more cost effective in… the long run. There will be no long run if we continue to make these unprecendented payments. Again I challenge you to name another entity that has ever had to make such ordinary payments ( as you put it) towards any pension fund. When you say our health benefits and pension have the guarantee of the taxpayer, how many times in history have we had to rely on that. NEVER! Unlike your salary and benefits comes directly from the taxpayer. The union busting policy that your party has overtaken in many states have no faired well with the voters, and to act like unioins have had anything to do with economic situation we currently face is laughable, Good luck in you run for re-election in 2012. When you have an original thought and not some talking point that your party sent to you to repeat over and over like the rest of the sheep in your party, post that.
I guess getting rid of all those bonuses for the Post Master General is out of the question.
Mr. Ross,
It’s not the Postal Service claiming we overpaid into the USPS retirement fund…it’s the Office of Inspector General that claimed we have overpaid. Again, get your facts straight!!!
Lets not stray from the facts: Congress set up the Post Office as a universal service organization to allow citizens to communicate with each other PERIOD. To set up a STRAW MAN argument about the profit that they make or loss that they suffer so that they operate as a “Business” is just plain BS. It was never meant to make a profit or be run like a business. Lets measure the effectiveness of the FAA, Army, Navy, Fema, TSA etc. You get the picture. Maybe you rednecks want to rewrite the Constitution.
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If what is being said here is true, then why has the gov borrowed from those funds (might I add several times), to cover short falls in budget battles? Why would you attack the only other institution that is self-supporting and employes so many veterans and disabled veterans? Union or no Union, the USPS has the highest respect of the general public for any government agency! Can the same be said for Congress?
I am sorry that you have been exposed to “haters”. I don’t pretend to know about prefunding or any of the big red herrings the Post Office sends you to chase. I do know about the day to day waste that I see in my office only. Rank and file don’t make decisions about how money is spent, only management.
I could go on and on about new GSA cars, GPS, parties, picnics, and pay for performance that managemt doesn’t share with the lowly worker. It wouldn’t matter because it would just be called sour grapes.
Layers of management are added even as we are reducing the working workforce. When liar figure, figures lie.
I personally have given up. I accept that they have finally killed the cash cow that they have been bleeding for the thirty two years I have worked there. I do have trouble accepting the blame for it, but again, there is nothing I can do about it.