A while ago, I wrote an article demanding a litmus test for people entering government, a driving exam of sorts.
Rooky Appeal
Watching from close-by, the self-proclaimed do-gooders, rookies really, vying for a post in government because they comprehend its fallacies more than a remedy to their systemic avoidance plus a post on Facebook today discussing the viability of the U.S. Postal Service continue to reaffirm my stance.
This time, the easy rhetoric designed to persuade the innocent and uninformed, states an opinion about the U.S. Postal Service:
The Postal Service is not losing money because of Amazon. It’s losing BILLIONS a year because in 2006, the Republican-led Congress passed a law forcing it to prepay its health benefits for future retirees DECADES in advance, which NO other corporation does. This was meant to bankrupt it so its business could be privatized for profit. Without this law, the Postal Service would be MUCH closer to profitability.
Ro Khanna – Democrat for Congress
Clearly this rhetoric, shared by many with skin-deep minds, misjudges that the U.S. Postal Service is not a commercial endeavor but a government infrastructure service, beholden and guided by the very laws written by Congress (not the President).
En Place
So, here is my response to the cheap scapegoating:
Well now, the supposition of bankruptcy leans on the assumption our government fully understands the consequences of its legislation. We all know by now the government does not often comprehend the real issue.
The real issue here is a little more complicated than stated here, and quite different than other delivery services, as the postal service is also by law forced to serve a single person living in rural area, as in the bottom of the Grand Canyon. Not a very commercially viable endeavor.
Like with any stale strategy, time has a way of throwing a wrench in it. And for sure the postal service needs an overhaul. Substantive change when government is forced to review its involvement and legislative efficacy in this matter.
Don’t make everything a partisan issue, or black and white, designed to divide people’s opinions. We must design a strategy for the U.S. Postal Service that serves the public interests, all of us, in concert with the other governmental services that rely on it.
This intrinsic complexity is not served by cheap talking points that make someone a winner in Congress earning the right to write law. The problem is not skin-deep as suggested here, and I am very skeptical to entrust the resolution of this problem to anyone who does.
Leadership
In healthcare parlance, do not trust people who proclaim to have better bandaids to the unresolved recognition of cancer. And certainly do not trust people who sell cancer as the singular disease it is not.
Politicians are responsible for creating legislation that enacts the most optimal theory that determines what humanity can discover, in the words of Albert Einstein. And a politician more interested in selling snake-oil as a new norm must meet the harsh condemnation from better-informed leaders we so desperately need.
