“Benjamin Franklin Would Gag Today”: If Congress Can’t Fix The Postal Service, It Can’t Fix Anything
Most Americans know that the U.S. Postal Service is a mess. What they also ought to know is that Congress is largely responsible for this once-competent institution’s bad rap.
This is the same Congress that is going to have to bring Medicare back from the brink of insolvency, find a way to fund Social Security as it becomes top-heavy with retired baby boomers, and pay down trillions in federal debt without short-circuiting the whole economy. Compared with all that, fixing the Postal Service is easy. Yet Congress dithers, cultivates decline and allows festering problems to become worse.
The Postal Service has been making headlines again because it just defaulted on a $5.5 billion payment due to the U.S. Treasury to fund healthcare costs for future retirees. Another such default is likely at the end of September. The details are technical and boring, and for now, the mail will still show up in the mailbox. So the members of Congress perpetrating the default—mostly House Republicans—act like it’s no big deal.
But it is a big deal because the recalcitrance of political leaders shows an alarming willingness to dismantle the basic machinery of the economy. The Postal Service isn’t some dispensable outpost doing research on cow pies or freshmen mating habits. It’s an elemental part of the government that has been around since before the Constitution. Benjamin Franklin, the seminal American, was the first Postmaster General. He’d gag at today’s handling of the Postal Service.
Here’s the basic background: In 1971, Congress reorganized the USPS as an independent agency that’s supposed to pay for its operations through stamp sales and other forms of revenue, like a normal company. But the catch is that Congress still holds sway over strategic decisions, and most Postal Service employees are treated as members of the federal workforce. So at best, the Postal Service is a hybrid organization that’s as vulnerable as ever to political meddling.
That’s what is holding up reform plans now. The Postal Service itself has detailed a plan to eliminate Saturday delivery, consolidate processing centers, close underperforming post offices and make other cuts to adapt to a technology-driven economy that is obviously less dependent on physical mail delivery than in the past. Hundreds of regular companies have changed their business models and made similar adjustments to survive. Those that didn’t—Eastman Kodak, Borders, Lehman Brothers—paid a brutal price.
The Senate has even passed a bill that would fix some of the Postal Service’s problems and buy time to sort out others. That brings us to the House, where sensible legislation goes to die. There is a House bill meant to fix the Postal Service, but House leaders won’t bring it up for a vote. Nor will they vote on the Senate bill. House leaders like Speaker John Boehner and Majority Leader Eric Cantor won’t say why, exactly.
Most likely, there’s not enough support in the House to pass any bill, so holding a vote would be an embarrassing setback for the GOP leadership. Opposition to reform seems to come from some usual suspects, such as rural lawmakers who don’t want postal facilities in their districts closed. Others (including Republicans) object to provisions that would allow the Postal Service more freedom to lay off unionized postal workers. Then there are Tea Party types who would prefer to privatize the agency, or who seemingly want to starve it of cash, so that … well, it’s not clear what purpose that would serve. What makes this standoff infuriating is that there are plenty of proposed solutions, including studies by at least three well-known consulting firms that execute corporate turnarounds for a living. There’s no need for further analysis, there’s only a need to make a decision and do something.
But the problem can be put off for a little longer, even if that makes the ultimate solution more expensive and encourages big mailers like Amazon and other retailers to look for other delivery choices. So Congress does less than the bare minimum and the Postal Service drifts toward ruination. Maybe the House will get to it in the fall, after their customary six-week August vacation. Maybe next spring. Maybe never, in order to show those impudent postal employees and their arrogant customers who’s really in charge around here.
Meanwhile, at the end of this year, Congress needs to come up with a deft way to forestall billions in tax hikes and spending cuts that will induce another recession if allowed to fully go into effect. By early next year, it will have to come up with a way to extend the government’s borrowing limit while also weaning Washington off its desperate borrowing habit. Then come some huge decisions about how to reform Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and the long-term defense budget. If the handling of the Postal Service is any indication, we all ought to be terrified.
By: Rick Newman, U. S. News and World Report, August 1, 2012
” Washington’s Most Beautiful Demagogue”: John Boehner Would Rather Not Deal With Michele Bachmann
Rep. Michele Bachmann, Washington’s Most Beautiful Demagogue, has an enviable seat on the House Intelligence Committee, because, after the Republicans took control of the House, Rep. John Boehner thought that would be a good idea that wouldn’t end up embarrassing him and the Republican Party and the nation as a whole. Who could’ve predicted that Bachmann would use the position to advance dingbat conspiracy theories, seek press attention with wild accusations, and generally continue acting as Michele Bachmann has always acted?
Bachmann actually got more pushback than she probably expected when she accused Hillary Clinton adviser Huma Abedin of being in league with the nefarious Muslim Brotherhood. John Boehner said “accusations like this being thrown around are pretty dangerous,” which seems to suggest that the person leveling the accusations shouldn’t have a privileged position related to national security and intelligence. Bachmann is reportedly worried that her committee assignment is in jeopardy.
Here’s the problem, though: The more extreme House Republicans don’t actually have any respect for Majority Leader Boehner, who always wants them to do lame non-conservative stuff like “raise the debt ceiling after winning stunning concessions on entitlements from President Obama and the Democrats.” Michele Bachmann, who has a huge campaign war chest and a national following, is a bit more influential with this crowd. Lots of activist conservatives think even criticizing her crusade against shadow agents of Islamofascism was cowardly and out of line.
And Robert Costa reports that Boehner is basically scared to remove her from the Intelligence Committee. That’s not quite how he phrases it, but the implication is there. Boehner is sort of hoping people just stop paying attention to Bachmann so that he doesn’t have to do anything about her:
Bachmann doesn’t appear ready to back down. Instead, sources tell NRO, she is working behind the scenes to generate support for her intelligence-committee post. Conservative talk-show host Glenn Beck, who has spoken with Bachmann on his program about the Abedin story, has reported that Bachmann is “facing pressure to apologize for her comments” or risk being “removed from her position.” Republican House aides roll their eyes at the Beck story. No such pressure, they say, is being exerted on the congresswoman. If anything, a third leadership source reiterates, Boehner is doing his best to avoid spending time on the Bachmann matter, publicly or privately.
Yet the general goodwill that has existed between Bachmann and Boehner for the past year seems to be gone. Bachmann, long a force during closed-door conference meetings, is now a backbencher once again, at least in the eyes of many congressional politicos. Boehner may be pressured to kick her off the committee, but with her star power fading, he doesn’t seem in any rush to make her a martyr.
Yeah, this seems like spin from Boehner. He knows he’ll catch hell if he actually punishes Bachmann, and he’d just much rather focus on anything else. So he says she’s embarrassed herself and no one will pay her any mind in the future, because as we all know Michele Bachmann is very concerned with not seeming like a deranged kook. Boehner’s “just don’t look” strategy means she doesn’t actually need to worry about any repercussions for her irresponsible statements, and she will likely feel free to continue making them.
By: Alex Pareene, Salon, July 27, 2012
“A New Definition Of Irony”: The GOP-Style Jobs Program
“Here in the House,” Speaker John Boehner announced after meeting with his caucus Wednesday morning, “Republicans are going to continue to stay focused on jobs.”
It’s true. Technically, House Republicans are focused on jobs: Eric Holder’s and President Obama’s. They want to put both men out of work.
Tying up this administration is Job One for the opposition party, and never more so than this week. Republicans have been awaiting with giddy anticipation a Supreme Court decision Thursday that they expect will overturn Obamacare, the signal achievement of Obama’s presidency. “If the court does not strike down the entire law, the House will move to repeal what’s left of it,” Boehner vowed.
At the same time, Republicans decided to dedicate Thursday to a spectacle on the House floor: voting to hold Holder, the attorney general, in contempt of Congress for declining to hand over certain documents related to the Operation “Fast and Furious” guns program on the Mexican border.
Fox News Channel’s Chad Pergram asked Boehner (R-Ohio) whether he thinks “the American public is buying the narrative that you’re here to talk about jobs, when in the next 24 hours . . . everything emanating from the House floor is about contempt of Eric Holder?”
“We’re going to continue to focus on jobs,” Boehner repeated.
After that, the next jobs-related activity for House Republicans was to hold a meeting of the Rules Committee to determine procedures for Thursday’s vote on Holder.
Republicans rushed the contempt citation to the floor — the first time in history that the body has taken such action against a sitting attorney general — under “emergency” procedures. They did so even though Boehner had not yet met with Holder and even though the committee handling the investigation had not allowed a single witness whom Democrats wanted to testify publicly. Had they worked with such alacrity to create jobs, the economy would probably be booming.
Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), chairman of the panel investigating Holder, told the Rules Committee that the attorney general has been “uncooperative at every step of the way” and that the Justice Department “lied” to Congress, and he suggested that Justice officials are “covering up a crime.”
Elijah Cummings (Md.), the top Democrat on Issa’s committee, said the inquiry is “one of the most highly politicized congressional investigations in decades.” The reason for the contempt vote, he said, “is plain and simple: politics.”
It was but an appetizer for Thursday’s food fight, but even this session, in a small, ornate hearing room at the Capitol, got nasty and personal, as lawmakers addressed one another by their first names. A trio of Republicans maintained that, as Rules Committee Chairman David Dreier (R-Calif.) put it, “this is not something that is desirable for any of us.” But Issa seemed to be enjoying himself as he mixed it up with the Democrats on the panel.
“It has all the trappings of a witch hunt,” charged Louise Slaughter (N.Y.), the rules panel’s ranking Democrat.
“Looks and smells like a witch hunt,” agreed Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.).
Issa retorted: “That’s been the Democratic talking point all along.”
At another moment, McGovern said Republicans “keep on moving the goal posts” in their requests of Holder.
“Not just moving the goal posts, moving the stadium,” Cummings added.
Responded Issa: “We keep moving the goal posts closer, but he can’t kick a two-yard field goal.”
Democratic complaints continued at great length: “You absolutely did not answer the question!” “Hold on, just a minute!” “A cynical maneuver.” “A disservice to the American people.” “A scripted sideshow.” “A dark, dark day.”
In response, Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.) shared with the panel lessons she had learned during her morning Bible study, and Rep. Rob Woodall (R-Ga.) shouted about serving as “stewards of the United States Constitution.” Issa taunted the Obama administration: “You own that mistake.”
Democrats did get Issa to admit that “I’ve never said Eric Holder knew anything specific” about the Fast and Furious program and that his contempt action “isn’t even about the program. It’s about the failure to tell us the details of post-lying events.” He further acknowledged that he didn’t call a George W. Bush administration attorney general to testify because he was “narrowly focused” on Holder and that he didn’t call other Democratic witnesses to testify because he was concerned about grandstanding.
“That’s the new definition of irony,” McGovern said, pleading for “the speaker to approach this in a more rational way.”
Unlikely. “I have no role in it,” Boehner said when reporters asked about the Holder vote.
Remember? He’s focused on jobs.
By: Dana Milbank, Opinion Writer, The Washington Post, June 27, 2012
“Up Popped The Devil”: Darrell Issa’s Cheap Political Opportunism
The historic significance of the day was not lost on the congregation that packed St. Mary’s Episcopal Church in Foggy Bottom two Sundays ago.
People from across the region gathered to celebrate the anniversary of a church founded 145 years ago.
They also had come to hear the morning’s prized speaker: the 82nd attorney general of the United States, and the first African American, Eric H. Holder Jr.
St. Mary’s, the church my wife, Gwen, and I attend, was the vision of 28 free African American men and women, many of whom had been slaves themselves. What a sweep of history: from bondage to the top suite in America’s Justice Department, in the space of a few lifetimes.
It was a time of celebration, a moment to reflect on how far the church, and the nation, had come since 1867.
No more separate pews in corners of the church for “people of color.” No more whites first, colored second when Holy Communion is served. No more separate Sunday school classes for white and black children. No more Washington as a bastion of segregation.
June 10, 2012, was the day to take stock of the church’s rich history, to come hear the attorney general speak of the critical role, as he told the congregation, “that houses of worship and faith-based organizations always have played in strengthening this nation — and bringing us closer to fulfilling America’s founding promise of liberty, opportunity and justice for all.”
It was a day to listen as Holder held up for praise the redeeming power of God’s grace and the values of tolerance, nonviolence, compassion, love and — above all — justice.
He used the occasion to call for a renewed faith in the power of those values “not only to heal fresh wounds and bridge long-standing divisions but also to fuel tomorrow’s progress.” “Seize the opportunity,” Holder said, “to look upon our nation as the founders of this church once did: seeing both its history — however imperfect — and its future of limitless promise; understanding both its weaknesses and its strengths, appreciating both the challenges we face and the infinite opportunities that lie ahead.”
It was a good day.
But then, as the elders like to say, “up popped the devil.”
In fact, 23 devils.
Actually, they aren’t devils. They are the 23-member Republican majority of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, who like to do devilish things such as recommending that the attorney general be held in contempt of Congress simply because they have the power and lust to do so.
Their pack is led by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), a headline-chasing publicity hound who never met an accusation too loopy to hurl. Issa got the Republican members to believe — or at least to say they believe — that Holder is withholding critical information from the panel. The committee’s 17 Democrats believe otherwise and voted against the contempt citation, noting that Holder’s Justice Department has turned over 7,600 documents relating to the issue that’s got Issa in a faux snit.
The issue is called “Operation Fast and Furious,” a venture of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives that allowed illegal gun buyers to take weapons to Mexico in the hopes that federal agents could track the weapons to a drug cartel.
Committee arithmetic being what it is, Issa got his way, and Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) has promised a vote on the House floor next week if Holder doesn’t turn over all of the internal documents that Issa seeks. With the Obama administration citing executive privilege to withhold some documents, a nasty, partisan floor fight is likely.
Score one for cheap political opportunism.
Neither Fast and Furious nor Issa’s fake fury justifies the looming crisis between the House of Representatives and the Obama administration. This politically inspired dispute diverts attention from issues of real consequence. That’s the shame of it all.
Two weeks ago, the talk at St. Mary’s was about the urgent priority of fulfilling the promise of security, liberty, opportunity and justice for everyone in this country. It was all about progress and the ability to come together to realize the dream that Martin Luther King Jr. entrusted to us.
There was optimism in the congregation that Sunday morning. People in the pews seemed to share Holder’s view that the record of progress passed to them can be extended, and that, as he said, they should “keep faith — in the Divine, in one another, and in the great nation it is our honor to help lead — and our solemn responsibility to serve.”
It was all about shared purpose and common cause, collective efforts, individual actions and marching toward progress.
Alas, that was before this week, Darrell Issa and his devilish ways.
By: Colbert I. King, Opinion Writer, The Washington Post, June 22, 2012
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