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To: Sam who wrote (195795)	8/4/2012 7:34:04 PM
From: Cogito	of 224487

How sad. The biggest problem for the Postal Service is their pension liability. The union has even said it would negotiate on it. But Congress has to act in order for anything to happen, and the House just won't allow it. As far as they are concerned, it is just a bastion of lazy no-good Democratic union voters. There is exactly one government service that is mandated to exist by the Constitution, and that's the Postal Service. The Constitution doesn't say that the service has to operate at a profit - only that it must operate. I find it ridiculous that some conservatives can't just get over the fact that it costs money to deliver all that mail that efficiently, and that the people who make it happen want to live decent lives, and maybe even to retire somewhat comfortably after decades of service. We're not even talking about that much money in the grand scheme of things. If you want to privatize the USPS, I believe you'd have to amend the Constitution to do it. Interestingly, at the time the Postal Service was seen as a source of revenue for the federal government, but that idea is not embodied specifically in the text of the Constitution.