Privatized delivery is not the answer

Conservatives, with Darrell Issa heading the charge, are at it again in their effort to privatize all government jobs and services, to kill any jobs in America that have good pay and benefits such as retirement, medical and especially any form of collective bargaining.

In the case of the Postal Service, legislators have received millions of dollars in contributions to kill the Post Office from companies like FedEx and United Parcel Service.

The U.S. Postal Service is constitutionally obligated to serve all Americans, regardless of geography, at uniform price and quality. It traces its roots to 1775 during the, Second Continental Congress, where Benjamin Franklin was appointed the first postmaster general. This is an essential service to rural-America and many small businesses and even large businesses like Netflix.

The coup de grace was administered by the lame-duck Congress in 2006 which passed the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act. The act requires the Postal Service to fund its retirement 75 years in advance in a 10-year window and, without this requirement that no company would have the ability to pay, was designed to kill the agency.

Without this requirement, the agency would have had a $1.5 billion surplus in 2012 and gets zero tax dollars as it is totally funded by postage fees. It has 600,000 employees that pay taxes and hires more veterans than any other company and if you think come the day it is totally privatized that you will get the same service at the same cost you are badly mistaken.

DENNIS SHELLHORN

Sandpoint