It is my opinion America’s most liked, hard-working government agency, the United States Postal Service, has become the poster child for what happens when Congress begins to meddle in a well-run business, causing that business huge financial losses.
In March 1970, over 200,000 postal workers went on strike. The result was a law enacted on Aug. 12, 1970, that gave the Postal Service a clear mandate to provide the nation with reliable, affordable universal mail service. The Postal Service stayed the course of the mandate until 1992, when Postmaster General Marvin Runyon initiated an internal reorganization and reduction force order that disrupted service dramatically.
In 1994, a reorganization of leadership took place and righted the ship. From 1994 to 2006, the mail service was healthy, well run and self-sustaining. In December 2006, our whack-a-mole Congress, in a lame duck session, mandated another governmental reform of the Postal Service, aka PAEA. The Postal Service was ordered to pre-fund retirement healthcare for employees 75 years out and had to do it within a 15-year time frame, equating to over $5 billion each year. The fire was lit, and Congress went home. No business in American history had ever been strapped with such a disastrous financial burden.
I have never met a post office employee who is not hard-working and friendly, and I have wondered at times how they can tolerate my “preaching” about how they are being destroyed by those who want to privatize the system.
Joseph Krill
Murrysville