The Post Office Costs Taxpayers Nothing, and Gives Us So Much in Return @alternet

The Post Office Costs Taxpayers Nothing, and Gives Us So Much in Return @alternet:

"A cabal of corporate predators and Koch-headed ideologues have been scheming for years to take "public" out of this public agency and strip "service" out of the U.S. Postal Service. The most effective ploy of these price-gouging privatizers has been a diabolical Big Lie—a massive PR hoax to depict this essential public service as a hopeless money loser, sucking billions from taxpayers every year. Unfortunately, our lazy media establishment keeps spreading their lie. Here's an August New York Times article falsely asserting that "the Postal Service has sunk deeper underwater—net losses for the second quarter of 2016 were $2 billion." Bovine excrement! In fact, our Post Offices earned $1.3 billion in profit so far this year, making this year the fourth straight that it has operated in the black. The discrepancy stems from phony paper losses manufactured by corporate lobbyists and right-wing lawmakers who've insisted since 2006 that the Postal Service must prefund retiree health benefits for 75 years in the future. No other agency and no corporation operates under this absurd and totally unnecessary burden, which adds billions of dollars in fictional costs to the agency's balance sheet. Here's another reality the sloppy corporate media ignores: Our postal network costs taxpayers zero, for we consumers finance its operations by purchasing those stamps and other services. It's time to put a Forever stamp on this public jewel."