Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/04/13/theyre-never-going-to-get-ri.html
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The GOP’s endgame is for clean water and breathable air to be a private, subscription only service.
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I did not know that…
also…
But seriously, the way the GOP has sought to bring down one of the most successful public services in the country boggles my mind… the fact that we regularly send out and receive mail, it generally gets where it’s going in a relatively short amount of time, is clearly a success story. But the ideology is strong with them.
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Yeah but who’s gonna pay for the more clean water and breathable air in the private Earth Factories owned by corporations? You need to have a profit margin!
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It gets better. Because the funds from the USPS earnings that are supposed to be set aside for “retirement benefits” for postal workers who have yet to be born goes into the general fund, the US government basically taxes a self-sustaining department of the government. At a higher rate than Amazon (even assuming they paid taxes). Said Amazon uses the USPS to deliver packages on Sundays. Which Republicans then point to as a failure of leadership at USPS.
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“…who would deliver the scorpions?”
These guys:
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So the US not only fails to provide social services like healthcare that other developed countries provide, but now are actively working towards dismantling elements of society.
It isn’t just decline of civilization, but taking a rocket powered wrecking ball to the bottom.
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Send a postcard to your senator to support the USPS!
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Post Offices will shutter before Gun Shops will.
Forever stamps and ammo? One stop shopping could save them after all…
(That’s clearly insane.)
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The GOP doesn’t like anything that actually works. Especially poor people. The US will go nowhere as a country until they are all rooted out.
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Hey, if the USPS is privatized, what happens to the $286 billion in pension assets? Asking for a corrupt oligarch friend.
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The USPS gets a lot of flack but it’s actually an incredible example of how well a government-run monopoly can provide services when it isn’t beholden to a for-profit corporate model.
A person in Sitka, Alaska can write a postcard and have it hand-delivered by a uniformed government employee to a residential address somewhere in the US Virgin Islands for 35 cents. That’s a goddamn miracle of efficiency and service.
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I was just saying something similar my mom the other day. It’s quite amazing when you think about it.
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What I found incredible from the weird and out-of-left-field comments to shut down the Post Office was the claim that UPS and FedEx could take over their job basically tomorrow unimpeded. Try walking into a UPS or FedEx store with $0.35 and a letter and see how far you can send it.
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Across the room?
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Not to mention the implications of giving private corporations responsibility for delivering absentee ballots and other important documents critical to the survival of a democratic society. It’s bad enough that we handed over so much of the responsibility for running elections to private interests when we started outsourcing all those voting machines.
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Considering the commute for some people right now is going to the spare bedroom, across the room mail might be quite useful.
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True, but I’m thinking more big picture, rather than coronapicture… I doubt mailing a letter to a friend across the country would be so cheap if it was privatized…
But that is another factor to consider, how the pandemic will shape the USPS. It’s still running daily to my house and I bet to yours, too. It would be pretty outrageous if Trump uses the pandemic to justify killing one of the most effective public services we have.
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I think that you misspelt idiocy, there.
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What those people forget is we are the only ones that deliver to EVERY address.
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