The masquerade continues: Playing politics with the Postal Service’s unfunded liabilities

SteveBlog, Jamison Articles

MARK JAMISON The House subcommittee on Federal Workforce, US Postal Service, & the Census held a hearing on Thursday, March 13, to receive testimony on the Postal Service’s $100 billion “unfunded liability.”  Initially the hearing was billed as another Darrell Issa special.  Issa is chairman of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, under which this subcommittee serves, and the hearings he … Read More

Under same management: Some reservations about postal banking

SteveBlog, Jamison Articles

MARK JAMISON A recent report by the USPS Office of Inspector General on offering financial services at the post office won immediate support from Senator Elizabeth Warren, and postal banking was thrust into the limelight.  A big front-page story in Huffington Post entitled “Breaking the Banks” by Elizabeth Swanson offers polling data (and a poll of its own) that shows 44% of Americans favor letting the … Read More

Premature motion: PRC dismisses bid to view non-public Amazon docs

SteveBlog, Jamison Articles

MARK JAMISON Almost three months ago, I filed a request with the Postal Regulatory Commission seeking access to documents filed under seal in the docket that dealt with the Postal Service’s deal with Amazon to deliver its parcels on Sundays.  Last week, the PRC finally responded to the request. The Commission ruled that my motion was “dismissed without prejudice” as being “premature,” meaning I … Read More

Can it get much worse? The Senate tries postal reform, again

SteveBlog, Jamison Articles

BY MARK JAMISON The Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs finally took up its postal reform bill at a markup session on Wednesday, January 29.  The new S.1486 the committee took up is significantly different from the Carper-Coburn bill released last August.  The current version, aka the substitute bill or the managers’ amendment, has introduced changes to the … Read More

The disappearing postal workforce: Counting up the losses

SteveBlog, Jamison Articles

BY MARK JAMISON On the first Friday of each month, economists, policymakers, and professionals in the finance industry wait for the Bureau of Labor Statistics to release the current jobs report.  The BLS report, which quantifies unemployment in the U.S., is widely seen as one of the primary economic indicators.  While some folks may judge the health of the economy … Read More

The Privatization Ruse

SteveJamison Articles

BY MARK JAMISON Accusations that the PMG’s ultimate goal is to privatize the Postal Service are apparently starting to make some of the folks at L’Enfant Plaza a little touchy. On January 17, the Washington Post ran a story about the new postal counters in Staples that included a quote from Senator Jon Tester of Montana: Donahoe “can say whatever he wants … Read More