{"id":2364,"date":"2011-06-21T06:30:12","date_gmt":"2011-06-21T11:30:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/?p=2364"},"modified":"2011-06-21T06:30:12","modified_gmt":"2011-06-21T11:30:12","slug":"pawlentys-really-bad-answers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/2011\/06\/21\/pawlentys-really-bad-answers\/","title":{"rendered":"Pawlentys Really Bad Answers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"highslide\" onclick=\"return vz.expand(this)\" href=\"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/APWU-News2.gif\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-thumbnail wp-image-2365\" title=\"APWU-News\" src=\"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/APWU-News2-150x150.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Pawlenty\u2019s Really Bad Answers<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>APWU Web News Article 073-2011, June 20, 2011<\/p>\n<p>A proposal by former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty to privatize the Postal Service is a really bad idea, APWU President Cliff Guffey wrote in a <a href=\"http:\/\/thehill.com\/blogs\/congress-blog\/economy-a-budget\/167155-pawlentys-really-bad-answer-to-usps-woes\" target=\"_blank\">guest column for The Hill<\/a>. Pawlenty, a Republican candidate for president, cited the USPS as a prime candidate for privatization in a speech at the University of Chicago on June 7.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTurning the entire mail system over to private operators would mean the end of universal service and uniform rates,\u201d Guffey wrote, and would leave citizens and businesses to navigate a confusing patchwork of private delivery providers with exorbitant rates and limited service.<\/p>\n<p>The economic downturn has hurt the Postal Service, the union president noted, but the primary cause of its financial crisis is the unreasonable congressional mandate that requires the agency to pre-fund healthcare benefits for future retirees. No other government agency or private business bears this burden.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe pre-funding requirement means that before the USPS sells its first stamp, it begins each fiscal year more than $5 billion in debt. Absent this burden, the Postal Service would have accumulated a $611 million cumulative surplus over the last four years \u2014 despite declining mail volume amid the recession,\u201d Guffey said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAt the same time, two independent actuarial studies concluded that the Postal Service has overfunded federal retirement accounts by $50 billion to $75 billion over several decades.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cLegislation now pending in Congress to correct these overpayments, which threaten to bankrupt the Postal Service by July 2012,\u201d he wrote. \u201cH.R. 1351, for instance, would allow the USPS to use overpayments to its pension accounts to meet the pre-funding obligations.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe USPS will continue to adapt to the changing business climate and remain a vital public service agency,\u201d Guffey said, \u201cprovided Congress repeals the devastating pre-funding requirement that is driving the agency to insolvency.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Hill is widely read by members of Congress.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Pawlenty\u2019s Really Bad Answers APWU Web News Article 073-2011, June 20, 2011 A proposal by former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty to privatize the Postal Service is a really bad idea, APWU President Cliff Guffey wrote in a guest column for The Hill. Pawlenty, a Republican candidate for president, cited the USPS as a prime candidate [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2364","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-apwu-news","last_archivepost"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2364","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2364"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2364\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2367,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2364\/revisions\/2367"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}