Why are we the only stupid industrialized country in the world?

by Thom Hartmann on April 17, 2010 - 12:29pm

The following article originally appeared on OpEdNews.com.

The postal service this week announced it would be cutting as many as 30,000 jobs through attrition - using hiring freezes as workers retire or quit.

According to American Postal Workers Union president William Burrus, cutting the U.S. Postal Service delivery to five days a week would be the beginning of the demise of the Post office. Burrus says it's not true that the postal service has to initiate major changes to survive a grave crisis.

Burrus says a little-known requirement by Congress for the postal service to pre-pay retiree health care obligations is the central cause of financial problems at the postal service. Absent that burden, the union president says, there would be a surplus of $3.7 billion over the last three fiscal years. In other words, if we had Medicare for All, the postal service would be profitable. Probably forever. Why are we the only stupid industrialized country in the world?

Submitted by bbishop725 on March 11, 2010 - 8:07pm. #

I am confused. Did part of this article get deleted? Who is asking the question about America being the stupidest industrialized country -- the author or Mr. Burrus? Both?

Is this supposed revelation of a "little known requirement" sufficient to render us the "stupidest industrialized country in the world?"

As to the postal service cutting back on services, I have been wondering for years how they managed to avoid it in light of UPS, FedEx and the Internet.

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