The Spark

the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist

“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx

Post Office Is NOT Losing Money!

Oct 31, 2011

The idea that the Postal Service is in financial trouble is a complete lie. Mail volume is NOT being hit by the Internet. Just the opposite: its record year was 2006, when people’s use of the Internet was already well established. And while first-class mail may be down thanks to people’s use of email instead of letters, parcel volume is way up–thanks to so much being bought over the Internet!

Yes, the USPS is expected to lose more than nine billion dollars this year–but that’s because of a crooked law Congress passed in 2006, requiring it to prepay 75 years of retiree health care within 10 years. 75 years!

The bill for that prepayment over the past four years was 21 billion dollars–just OVER the 20 billion dollar deficit the USPS ran up in the same time. No other government agency has such a requirement.

In addition, according to several government accounting agencies, the USPS has overpaid its pension fund by up to 75 billion dollars! Take away those two amounts, and the Postal Service has been comfortably making money, not losing it.

No reason to close a single post office, or cut even one worker!