Delivering Insanity

The recent news that - once again - the U.S. Postal Service continues to have major money problems didn't surprise us. It's a story that has upset our entire staff for a variety of reasons, for some time now.

For many years now, it's been obvious that the U.S. Postal Service, like virtually every postal system around the world, has had its previous business model threatened by the reach and growth of the internet. This past year has been especially hard on U.S.P.S., as pressures from many directions have come to a head - especially from those in politics who'd either prefer to privatize the whole system or would prefer to use the postal service budget money elsewhere.

The fact is, if the postal service were allowed to implement some of the ideas that many in the postal system have suggested for years, there would be no problem at all.

As the radio and tv commercials you may have seen and heard, correctly point out, one of the Postal Service's biggest financial liabilities is their pension fund. Thanks to a 2005 change by Congress, the postal service pension fund is required to be fully-funded at all times, unlike virtually every other pension fund for either private businesses or public unions.

For the U.S.P.S., that adds up to roughly $5.5 billion annually - and it means the Postal Service pension fund is currently way overfunded. Even by conservative measures, the postal service pension fund currently has more than $75 billion more than it needs, something the Postal Service has been trying to change for several years now.

The U.S. Postal service hasn't been blind to the internet, either. More than once over the last decade, proposals have been presented or floated which would have allowed the Postal Service to follow in the footsteps of Deutsche Post, the German federal postal system.

In Germany, many years ago, they saw that physical mail volume was decreasing, so - like any smart business - they attempted to broaden their potential market. Deutsche Post gained the right to act as a small-scale banking service, developed a service to sell long-distance phone cards, and worked out deals to act as a payment service for bills from many different companies, including utilities, phones, and internet providers. They even took their delivery services overseas, through DHL, which Deutsche Post owns.

All of these would be great options for the U.S. Postal Service as well - if only they were allowed by Congress to make changes of this nature.

Unfortunately, as a constitutionally mandated but semi-autonomous arm of the government, whenever the Postal Service wants to make a change of virtually any kind, they have to go through extensive Congressional wrangling. As Congress has become increasingly paralyzed by partisanship and inaction, even the simplest measures have gotten hopelessly tied up in petty politics and bureaucracy.

Instead of standing up and boldly stating what needs to be done - as President Obama did in Kansas on Tuesday - the U.S. Postal Service and its management has surrendered, proposing massive cuts to services, massive cuts to postal service jobs, ending next-day delivery, and ending Saturday delivery as well.

Not only would those measures devastate rural communities from coast to coast, they will also likely harm the long-term success of the Postal Service -- which, as a constitutionally mandated government organization, can't go away, and can't be privatized without significant Congressional action.

Meanwhile, postal workers are deeply unsure of their future, and terrified of the present, but they still keep on delivering presents, letters, and packages on time, and at prices no private company can or would ever match, to places that Fed Ex and UPS simply don't go.

From our perspective, the actual workers of the U.S.P.S. seem to be the only people who are delivering any sanity into this subject.

Sadly, it is Congress and the Postal Service executives who are in control of the future of the very folks who do all the heavy lifting at the U.S.P.S.

Theory, Practice, and Harvesting Anger

"In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is." - Yogi Berra

"The road to Hell is paved with good intentions." - St. Bernard of Clairvaux

It seems like the news these days just keeps repeating. The GOP Presidential contest has become a circus, along with the continuing - and seemingly perpetual - standoff in Congress over extending the payroll tax cut and federal unemployment benefits. So we thought we'd turn our attention today to a different manufactured disaster, this time in farm fields and barns across America.

In case you missed it, the U.S Labor Department is on the verge of approving new child safety standards for working in agriculture, for the first time since 1970. In theory, setting higher safety standards for kids and young teens, in one of the most dangerous fields of employment in the nation, sounds like a good idea - and it's one we'd normally applaud. The childhood injury rate on farms has fallen nearly sixty percent from 1998 to 2009, according to the National Farm Medicine Center. The fact remains that fatality rates for young people working in agriculture are still many times higher than the rates for American young people working in any other industry.

The problem with the Labor Department's standards isn't their intent. It's what they call for kids and teens not to be able to do.

Current federal labor law already limits, to some degree, what young people can do, both on farms that their parents own, as well as other farms they might work at - such as extended relatives, family friends, or even 4-H and FFA farm project centers. However, the new proposed regulations may limit kids so much they can't be involved in groups like the FFA or 4-H. They may not even be able to take odd jobs, like hauling hay - or summer jobs, like detasseling.

While consumer protection and advocacy groups like Public Citizen have said the new regulations don't actually ban young people from detasseling, the new regulations from the Department of Labor don't specifically make it clear what regulations apply in certain circumstances. This may actually make things worse for everyone involved - teen workers, the farmers that depend on seasonal teen labor, and even ag support groups, like the FFA and 4-H.

We understand the concerns of Americans who enjoy farming, those who want to teach their kids about the family business, as well as those young people who rely on ag-related jobs for the money they use for everything from prom and presents, to school lunches and their first car.

We also understand where those in the Department of Labor are coming from; it's their job to make sure every worker in America has safe working conditions, especially children that we allow to be in our workforce.

The problem is that groups on both sides of this debate don't seem to be talking to each another at all. Sadly, just like the idiots in Congress, instead of moving toward a better government with better solutions for everyone, both sides of this battle seem to want to sow seeds of anger and misunderstanding, blaming the other side as blind fools who don't know squat about the subject in contention.

As with Republicans and Democrats in Washington, DC, if all we ever plant is hate and distrust, we can't see how either side will reap anything but more trouble.

A Tempest - Or Much Ado About Nothing?

To say this past weekend had a bit more drama than necessary certainly wouldn't be going too far, in our collective opinion.

The media - especially the conservative punditry - unnecessarily attempted to build suspense for Herman Cain's big announcement on Saturday, that he was suspending his bid for the Presidency. Anyone who has ever been in a serious relationship knew that after Cain met with his wife when he got home on Friday, he'd be leaving the Presidential race - or his wife would likely be leaving him.

The conservative alternate reality also got all worked up over a Saturday night television event that was anything but a debate. The Fox-hosted spectacle had three state attorney generals, six GOP candidates for President, more bull than a rodeo, and more failed attempts at humor than Saturday Night Live.

The saddest bit of right-wing wing holiday dreaming over the weekend came from Nebraska, however, via the New York Times' Jeff Zeleny.

Zeleny, in an article published Friday afternoon, noted that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Senator John Cornyn, chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, have been not-so-quietly begging Nebraska Governor Dave Heineman to do what Heineman already has said - more than once - he would not do: challenge Democratic Senator Ben Nelson for the U.S. Senate seat in Nebraska, in 2012.

Sadly, Gov. Heineman may indeed change his mind about running for Senate, after promising he wasn't going to do so - a process that Republicans call lying when Democrats do similar things.

We're unsure if Heineman is serious, or if his statement to Zeleny about McConnell and Cornyn's entreaties is simply a follow up to the low-level, perpetual grudge match between Nelson and Heineman. That battle saw another round last week when Nelson knocked Heineman for taking a $5 million federal grant to help set up insurance exchanges for the Affordable Care Act - something that Heineman has been dragging his feet on doing.

Aside from the hypocritical nature of Heineman's actions, or the obvious  desperation of the Republican Party in begging Heineman, the facts remain the same now as they were when Paul drew the cartoon and we wrote the commentary in November of 2010 - when Heineman officially announced he would NOT be running for the seat Nelson now occupies in the U.S. Senate.

We understand the polls say Nelson's race in 2012 - if he decides to undertake it - will be brutal and ugly, no matter what.

It will also be incredibly expensive. In a year when the campaign war chests of both major parties will be stuffed full of money from who knows where, campaign spending will be tighter than ever. For a Republican party that increasingly looks to be in an ugly political financing situation nationally, doing something that would likely waste a huge amount of money, while not generating a certain or even likely win isn't a fiscally responsible investment of campaign contributions - whether from the party directly, or those supporting the GOP line.

If the Republican leaders are truly fiscally responsible, they'll let Heineman go, and let the Democrats slug it out against current Nebraska Attorney General - and likely GOP nominee - Jon Bruning.

To be or not to be? We bet Democrats and Republicans alike will find out before mid-January.