Congress is being bribed to kill the Postal Service. Even though they do a better job than FedEx or UPS.

You may have heard about UPS and FedEx f***ing up during the Christmas rush. You may not have heard that the Postal Service did better than either of their competitors. You probably did not hear that they covered for UPS and FedEx, delivering thousands upon thousands of packages that the much-ballyhooed “overnight” delivery companies couldn’t handle. And the USPS accomplished this feat in spite of being put at a massive competitive disadvantage by Congress, back in 2006.

That disadvantage?They imposed a regulation so burdensome as to to destroy the agency: a 5.5-billion-dollar-a-year pension pre-payment requirement on the USPS that NONE of their competitors have to pay. Hell, no other agency or company in the USA has to pay it. And the Congress imposed this ridiculous tax upon the USPS after being bribed to do so by the likes of UPS. Bribed? Yes, bribed. Calling them “campaign contributions” is a nice fiction, but we are calling spades by their rightful names here.

For example: co-sponsor Susan Collins got $22,160.00 from UPS, just in 2006. Joe Lieberman is an even cheaper lay: $5,000.00 from FedEx in 2006. And then they passed the post-office-killing bill by a “voice vote”, which allows legislators to avoid going on the official record. Not just whores, but cowardly whores.

Of course, the House is on the take, too: let’s look at just one of the sponsors:

From 2001 through 2010 Shuster received $29,500 from Fed-Ex, $6,000 from Koch Industries PAC, and $36,500 from UPS. In the 2011-2012 election cycle, according to OpenSecrets.org, Fed-Ex has given Shuster $7,500. UPS has given $ 5,000.

All of these mutts want to privatize the postal service. And who would take over after privatization? Why, shucky darn, what a coinkeedink, it would be UPS and FedEx. We would pay more and get less, as our elected “representatives” laugh all the way to their Swiss bank accounts.

Realize this: UPS and FedEx suck so hard, they have to use the Postal Service to deliver a huge number of items every day. They pay a pittance for this service, and pocket the profits. And act like they deserve credit for the deliveries. Bull-f***ing-s***. The Post Office deserves credit for bailing out their incompetent and inefficient private competitors.

Bitching about the USPS is a time-honored tradition, and this writer does his share. But the private-sector alternatives cost more and stink worse. And the foulest stench of all comes from Capitol Hill, where those greedy motherf***ers are lining their pockets and trying to screw us even worse than we already have been.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

Thanks to Cranky Readers for pointing out a typo: it’s 5.5 billion, not 55. B&C

You Can’t Be Partly Pregnant

Mr. Blunt and Cranky was reminded of this old saying while listening to the latest Postal Service brouhaha. For those who have not heard the noise, here is a brief recap: the Posties are broke; indeed, they are as broke as the Ten Commandments. And every time they try something to fix their problem, all Hell breaks loose.

This is because the agency is required to be “partly pregnant”: a constitutionally-mandated government agency that is simultaneously expected to run itself like a private business. That is confusing enough as it is, but wait- there’s more.

The USPS is required by law to serve everyone, anywhere in the U.S., no matter how remote, at the same price, quality and speed. Oh, and Congress can veto many actions of the USPS, and add additional mandates as it sees fit, whenever Congress takes a fancy to.

The USPS tried to cut costs by closing and consolidating under-used post offices. They got smacked down. They tried other ways to save money, and got spanked again. Notice that private concerns like FedEx did similar things to become leaner and meaner, and no one turned a hair.

So we have a government agency, regulated to a ludicrous degree, that is expected to somehow compete with lightly-regulated private-sector businesses like FedEx and UPS. That’s like expecting a duck-billed platypus to outrun a thoroughbred at Churchill Downs.

You can’t be partly pregnant. You can’t be partly private or partly public either. Demanding that the Postal Service be held to two incompatible standards is like baking a Limburger-sour-cream-chocolate-and-onion birthday cake with ketchup icing: you can make it, but no one will be happy with the results.

Mr. B & C