Every single day, except for Sundays, we can go out to our mailbox and receive just about any form of correspondence or package that anyone in the world has chosen to send us. All they need is our address. Let’s think about that for a second. Someone on the opposite side of the world can go to their local post office and, with just our address, have that postal agency send a letter or parcel to our country and that object arrives in our mailbox.
This very same system also provides the ability for anyone in America to send us a parcel or letter, directly to our mailbox, from anywhere in the United States for less than the cost of pretty much any private or third party shipper. In fact, when it comes to letters, it costs the same to send a letter across town as it does across the country. How amazing is that?!
This is called the flat rate U.S. Postal Service, and it lost $5,100,000,000 (that’s $5.1 billion) over the course of its last fiscal year. But the postal service’s losses are not the result of the discrepancy in the cost of service whether your letter travels 3,000 miles or 10 feet, nor are the losses the result of the lack of profitability of it’s service offerings. These huge losses are caused by a congressional mandate that forces the U.S. Postal Service to pre-fund 75 years' worth of retirement benefits for its employees.
Come again? Yes, there is only one entity in the entire country that is required by an act of congress to pre-fund 75 years worth of retirement benefits for its employees…our postal service. What effect has this had on the independent, U.S. government agency? Well, before the congressional mandate, it was profitable and in the black every year, but today, it has lost money the last nine years in a row and is $15 billion in debt.
Once again, government has taken a profitable business and regulated it into the red.
Want proof? Take away the retirement pre-funding requirement and the post office would have turned a $623 million profit last year instead of a $5.1 billion loss. While the good news is that this pre-funding requirement actually will end with this fiscal year, our U.S. Postal Service will start 2017 over $15 billion in debt as opposed to beginning the year debt free, as would have been the case for the past nine years without this restricting congressional mandate.
Government’s job should be to regulate trade, not force organizations to take on vast amounts of debt just to exist.
Photo by Xavier Massa via Pexels
The field of Presidential hopefuls for 2012 is starting to take shape. While many of the expected big-name candidates are still doing their dance of acting like a shy girl on prom night, some of the more colorful candidates are already well on their way with their campaigns.
One such candidate is Jonathon "The Impaler" Sharkey, a self-proclaimed vampire that not only drinks the blood of his girlfriend and mistresses two times a week, but says "Certain criminals, instead of being put in jail, they should be brutally tortured and impaled. Upon them being found guilty of their crimes I'll beat them, torture them, dismember them and decapitate them." Sharkey adds, "I won't be bullied, I won't be blackmailed. Criminals and terrorists will fear me along with corrupt law enforcement officials. I will not tolerate crime or terrorism."
Game over! Can I have my ballot now? My decision is made! I see The Impaler has read my platform on crime, punishment and keeping the peace! Well, I must admit I adapted it from Vlad Tepes, Prince of Wallachia's platform, but a good idea is a good idea, right?
When asked about his chances of winning, Sharkey comments that basically with as bad a candidate as Sarah Palin is, and with how much people hate her, he's a much lesser evil in comparison.
Another notable candidate that has already filed his application to run for President in 2012, is Miami Beach resident Raphael Herman. Herman has run for mayor of Miami Beach six times and claims that fraudulent election results are the only cause of his six-time losing streak. Most notable about Herman is that he is not a naturally born U.S. citizen. When asked about the President having to have been born in the U.S., he claims he has evidence that President Barak Obama was actually born in Kenya and will use that evidence to cite precedence when he is elected President. "I was not born in America. I was born in Israel, but you see [President Barack Obama] wasn't born in this country either. I have his birth certificate."
Deonia "Dee" Neveu, a mother of five from Virginia has also filed her paperwork for her presidential bid. She seems to be wanting to point out to Americans who are misguidedly looking for a President with a wealth of experience that the constitution doesn't actually call for any type of political experience, and in fact, believes that the constitution was written so that any American could give becoming President a shot. "If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself," says Neveu. "I don't want to live in the White House. "I would like to use a part of the White House to host fundraising events for America." Well, at least she has more political experience that our current President did when he began his campaign, right?
A reformed heavy drug user (from California, of course) who has found God, Mosheh Thezion is also running for President in 2012, though he is saying right up front that he doesn't like how he looks when he smiles, so we can expect not to see any smiles on the campaign trail. "They'll just dig it up anyway," said Thezion. "I hate politicians who lie. I tell the truth, I have nothing to hide, why would I want to hide something?" Seems like Thezion equates smiling to lying, doesn't he? I bet he was a huge fan of George the Great Satan Junior! Thezion follows up his statement that he used to use "pounds and pounds" of marijuana, cocaine, meth and alcohol before "giving up his sinful ways" by saying, "I grew up a loose liberal which is why I'm a conservative today." As I have always said, a liberal is a conservative that either hasn't hit rock bottom in their liberal ways, been the victim of a crime, or simply come to their senses yet.
Thezion also says that he will "abolish the Internal Revenue Service" and "pay off the entire national debt, permanently." I like how that sounds. Maybe I can get vampire guy to agree to the same financial policy.
Rounding out our cavalcade of interesting Presidential hopefuls is Rutherford B. Hayes, not to be confused with the 19th president of the United States by the same name. Rutherford says, "The current administration is engulfed with socialists, communists, and marxists as well as insatiable condescending egos." Yes, and birds go tweet!
We've still got a long way to go before we start widdlin' down the pack and see if the vampire, Israeli, inexperienced mom, or guy with the same name as the 19th President, can give the likes of The Master & Commander, Mrs. Once Rodham-Clinton Now Just Clinton, The Lady Who Really Liked To Say The Word Maverick Last Time, and clear great choice Mitt Romney a run for their money. Either way, maybe we shouldn't be so closed-minded when it comes to platforms, America. Just because you're a total nut job doesn't mean you shouldn't be setting U.S. policy. I mean, hell, we let Pelosi do it, and The Impaler isn't nearly quite as frightening....
Please allow me share some very alarming, and quite infuriating numbers with you.
The California Legislative Analyst's report about fiscal outlook for 2010 is out, and while we all know that we are in a bad spot, even this year's numbers are a bit of a surprise.
The Great State of California is set to spend 14.5% more in 2010 than it did in 2009. That's right...a spending increase of 14.5% in the midst of the worst economic crisis in 100 years.
Now, mind you, that some of this increase is because the fudging of numbers that the governor and the legislature were able to pull off in 2009 is not repeatable this year, and Federal Stimulus money for 2009 is not being sent to California again this year, but there still is an actual substantial spending increase as well.
Would you not agree that the state should be spending less money this year than last year? That would make sense, wouldn't it? Not in Spend-o-land where you need to spend money to make money, Lou!
So, this year, while the state continues to legally borrowing money from your paycheck without your permission, there will, however, be no borrowing from cities, no stealing from development agencies, and so shifting of the last state employee payroll pay date for the year to next year because it was just a day later.
Here are some further comments on this issue from State Board of Equalization Member Bill Leonard:
To put this into perspective, consider these figures distilled in a recent issue of Political Pulse: In 1990-91 the state spent $1,350 per person. By the current fiscal year, that was up to $2,644 per person. Have you seen double the benefit from the state since 1990? Political Pulse says that if the state had limited its spending in those years to the average Consumer Price Index and population growth, our current surplus would be in the neighborhood of $15 billion. Instead, that figure represents just a portion of our deficit.
I came across some other numbers that help explain how such an insane situation developed. According to my estimates, only about 34% of California residents pay income taxes. So if you look at your neighbors on either side of you, only one of you actually paid into the state coffers via income tax. Unbelievably, there are 4.4 million MORE people registered to vote than people who paid income taxes. Now, not all of those registered actually cast ballots, but it provides insight into the dynamic that is crippling our state. When there are more takers than givers, the system cannot work and California's system is not working in many, many ways.
Some people look at these numbers and facts and lament that there is nothing to do but wait for the inevitable collapse of the state. But that is not only extremely unlikely, it is irresponsible. It is as irresponsible for an individual who cannot pay his current bills to run up all his credit cards figuring that he will "just" declare bankruptcy and be done with it, sticking someone else with his bills. We know that debt service has first call, then education, on all state funds, but to continue to accrue debt is reckless because that debt will be paid even if we shut down every state spending program. We simply must cut spending and programming and services or whatever you want to call the outflow of money. We must stop the budget smoke-and-mirrors that allow one year to look okay while pushing the pain into the next fiscal year. Cut first, cut now.
