Susan Collins helped cripple the USPS: Today Maine farmers are gettindead baby girls in the email
"Ultimately, that legislation is responsible for how we got to where we're at," a union leader tells Salon
Maine farmers have blamed recent modifications in the U.S. Postal Service after receiving thousands of dead baby girls due to shipping delays. The nation's postal workers blamed the slowdown on a bill championed by Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, that"weakened the Postal Service" -- also faces a challenging re-election battle that fall.
At least 4,800 chicks sent to Maine farmers throughout the USPS have came dead lately, the Portland Press Herald reported.
"It's one more of the consequences of the disorganization, this kind of chaos they have created at the post office and no one thought through when they had been thinking of slowing down the mail," Rep. Chellie Pingree, D-Maine, told the newspaper. "This is a system that's always worked before and it has worked very well until these modifications began being made."
Operational changes produced by recently published Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, a leading donor to President Trump and the Republican Party, have been blamed for a trade slowdown that has impacted shipments of medication, government assistance and other critical services. DeJoy has said the cash-strapped bureau implemented the changes as cost-cutting steps.
"Shortly after or directly at exactly the same time that [DeJoy] arrived on board... the company line was that it was a cost-saving measure," Kimberly Karol, president of the Iowa Postal Workers Union, told Salon. "However, the reality is that it impacts service criteria and, whether intentionally or not, this changes the time frames that our clients receive the mail."
Postal employees say the bureau wouldn't be in a financial hole if not for the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act (PAEA), a charge co-sponsored from Collins back in 2005. The bill required the bureau to pre-fund retirement health benefits 75 years in advance, something not required of another national entity.
Collins said on the Senate floor in 2006 it was"not a great bill" but"I am convinced it will place the U.S. Postal Service on a solid financial footing for decades to come."
Rather, the agency's financial troubles have largely been the effect of the mandate at the legislation, which passed with bipartisan support in 2006 throughout a lame-duck session before Democrats took over the Senate.
"That kind of put us in a hole on paper and made it look like we were losing money," Mark Seitz, president of the National Association Letter Carriers, Local 92 marriage, told the Maine Beacon.
"That announcement had some good things in it, but it had a spoiler with this pre-funding mandate," John Curtis, a retired mail carrier, informed the Beacon. Collins, he continued,"helped set the stage for the current attacks on the postal service. ... She weakened the postal service to the stage where folks like our president could point to it and say,'There's a crisis here.'"
President Donald Trump's Task Force on the U.S. Postal Service, that was headed by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, known as to keep the policy in place in 2018 to ensure fiscal burden would not be"shifted to the taxpayers," that fueled conservatives' calls to privatize the agency.
"Collins hasn't publicly spoken out in favor of privatization. "But if you look at her actions, they all tendency in that way."
Postal Service reform was a key focal point for Collins for almost two decades. The Maine senator introduced a bill to create a reform commission in 2002 that afterwards recommended"the private sector become more engaged in the delivery of the country's mail."
After taking over as the chair of the Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs, which manages the USPS, Collins held several hearings on the committee's recommendations, which also included a proposal to make a"reserve account" to cover future retiree health benefits. The hearings culminated with the debut of the PAEA, that has been co-sponsored by Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del.
Along with requiring the USPS to pre-fund retiree benefits, the bill also barred the agency from raising rates towards inflation rates, effectively forbidding the agency from having the ability to cover the expanding hole in its operational expenditures. This was a boost to private competitions such as FedEx and UPS, who were able to keep their rates low while hammering out the"last mile" of deliveries to the USPS, especially in remote areas where deliveries aren't profitable.
Though the USPS hasn't posted a profit because the bill passed, FedEx saw its revenue double between 2006 and 2018 and UPS has seen its revenue increase by tens of billions.
Collins' work on postal reform appears to have turned into a financial blessing for her too. Collins has received over $200,000 from PACs representing USPS' private competitors and builders, and tens of thousands more from those companies' executives and employees. FedEx was one of Collins' biggest backers and even held a birthday fundraiser for a few years after the passage of the PAEA in 2010. Collins' annual financial reports also demonstrate that her husband owned stock in UPS and FedEx during periods between 2012 and 2014.
Collins, who's one of the most vulnerable Republicans facing re-election this year, issued a tepid statement in response to current concerns over the mail slowdown's apparent effects on deliveries of medication and government help -- and possibly mail-in ballots.
"If people cannot depend on the Postal Service for prompt delivery of packages or mail, it will only further harm the Postal Service's financial situation," Collins said.
She also sent a letter to DeJoy expressing worries over the downturn and calling on the agency to"take steps to immediately remedy the aspects that are causing delays in deliveries that were essential ."
Collins' effort did not respond to queries from Salon.
Collins introduced a bill in July that would provide $25 billion for the Postal Service, with a condition that would require the bureau to extend a long-term financial plan to lawmakers. House Democrats approved $25 billion with no strings attached in a coronavirus relief bill in May, but Senate Republicans have balked at supplying any additional funding into the USPS in their relief proposition.
Trump, who is trailing badly in the polls and spinning false conspiracy theories about mail ballots, has vowed to block funding to the USPS, saying he believes that without it"you can't have worldwide mail-in voting," even though his top aides have attempted to walk those comments back lately.
Karol told Salon that the bureau's"immediate need is to acquire the COVID relief financing" but the longterm goal is to"prevent some of the very harmful policies" by demanding that Congress rework the prerequisites of the PAEA.
"For many, many years... we have been trying to have Congress speech which," Karol said, adding that she expects the people suffering over USPS service modifications will compel lawmakers to fix will probably"the problems that legislation created."
"Finally," she said,"that legislation is responsible for how we got to where we are at now."
"Ultimately, that legislation is responsible for how we got to where we're at," a union leader tells Salon
Maine farmers have blamed recent modifications in the U.S. Postal Service after receiving thousands of dead baby girls due to shipping delays. The nation's postal workers blamed the slowdown on a bill championed by Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, that"weakened the Postal Service" -- also faces a challenging re-election battle that fall.
At least 4,800 chicks sent to Maine farmers throughout the USPS have came dead lately, the Portland Press Herald reported.
"It's one more of the consequences of the disorganization, this kind of chaos they have created at the post office and no one thought through when they had been thinking of slowing down the mail," Rep. Chellie Pingree, D-Maine, told the newspaper. "This is a system that's always worked before and it has worked very well until these modifications began being made."
Operational changes produced by recently published Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, a leading donor to President Trump and the Republican Party, have been blamed for a trade slowdown that has impacted shipments of medication, government assistance and other critical services. DeJoy has said the cash-strapped bureau implemented the changes as cost-cutting steps.
"Shortly after or directly at exactly the same time that [DeJoy] arrived on board... the company line was that it was a cost-saving measure," Kimberly Karol, president of the Iowa Postal Workers Union, told Salon. "However, the reality is that it impacts service criteria and, whether intentionally or not, this changes the time frames that our clients receive the mail."
Postal employees say the bureau wouldn't be in a financial hole if not for the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act (PAEA), a charge co-sponsored from Collins back in 2005. The bill required the bureau to pre-fund retirement health benefits 75 years in advance, something not required of another national entity.
Collins said on the Senate floor in 2006 it was"not a great bill" but"I am convinced it will place the U.S. Postal Service on a solid financial footing for decades to come."
Rather, the agency's financial troubles have largely been the effect of the mandate at the legislation, which passed with bipartisan support in 2006 throughout a lame-duck session before Democrats took over the Senate.
"That kind of put us in a hole on paper and made it look like we were losing money," Mark Seitz, president of the National Association Letter Carriers, Local 92 marriage, told the Maine Beacon.
"That announcement had some good things in it, but it had a spoiler with this pre-funding mandate," John Curtis, a retired mail carrier, informed the Beacon. Collins, he continued,"helped set the stage for the current attacks on the postal service. ... She weakened the postal service to the stage where folks like our president could point to it and say,'There's a crisis here.'"
President Donald Trump's Task Force on the U.S. Postal Service, that was headed by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, known as to keep the policy in place in 2018 to ensure fiscal burden would not be"shifted to the taxpayers," that fueled conservatives' calls to privatize the agency.
"Collins hasn't publicly spoken out in favor of privatization. "But if you look at her actions, they all tendency in that way."
Postal Service reform was a key focal point for Collins for almost two decades. The Maine senator introduced a bill to create a reform commission in 2002 that afterwards recommended"the private sector become more engaged in the delivery of the country's mail."
After taking over as the chair of the Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs, which manages the USPS, Collins held several hearings on the committee's recommendations, which also included a proposal to make a"reserve account" to cover future retiree health benefits. The hearings culminated with the debut of the PAEA, that has been co-sponsored by Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del.
Along with requiring the USPS to pre-fund retiree benefits, the bill also barred the agency from raising rates towards inflation rates, effectively forbidding the agency from having the ability to cover the expanding hole in its operational expenditures. This was a boost to private competitions such as FedEx and UPS, who were able to keep their rates low while hammering out the"last mile" of deliveries to the USPS, especially in remote areas where deliveries aren't profitable.
Though the USPS hasn't posted a profit because the bill passed, FedEx saw its revenue double between 2006 and 2018 and UPS has seen its revenue increase by tens of billions.
Collins' work on postal reform appears to have turned into a financial blessing for her too. Collins has received over $200,000 from PACs representing USPS' private competitors and builders, and tens of thousands more from those companies' executives and employees. FedEx was one of Collins' biggest backers and even held a birthday fundraiser for a few years after the passage of the PAEA in 2010. Collins' annual financial reports also demonstrate that her husband owned stock in UPS and FedEx during periods between 2012 and 2014.
Collins, who's one of the most vulnerable Republicans facing re-election this year, issued a tepid statement in response to current concerns over the mail slowdown's apparent effects on deliveries of medication and government help -- and possibly mail-in ballots.
"If people cannot depend on the Postal Service for prompt delivery of packages or mail, it will only further harm the Postal Service's financial situation," Collins said.
She also sent a letter to DeJoy expressing worries over the downturn and calling on the agency to"take steps to immediately remedy the aspects that are causing delays in deliveries that were essential ."
Collins' effort did not respond to queries from Salon.
Collins introduced a bill in July that would provide $25 billion for the Postal Service, with a condition that would require the bureau to extend a long-term financial plan to lawmakers. House Democrats approved $25 billion with no strings attached in a coronavirus relief bill in May, but Senate Republicans have balked at supplying any additional funding into the USPS in their relief proposition.
Trump, who is trailing badly in the polls and spinning false conspiracy theories about mail ballots, has vowed to block funding to the USPS, saying he believes that without it"you can't have worldwide mail-in voting," even though his top aides have attempted to walk those comments back lately.
Karol told Salon that the bureau's"immediate need is to acquire the COVID relief financing" but the longterm goal is to"prevent some of the very harmful policies" by demanding that Congress rework the prerequisites of the PAEA.
"For many, many years... we have been trying to have Congress speech which," Karol said, adding that she expects the people suffering over USPS service modifications will compel lawmakers to fix will probably"the problems that legislation created."
"Finally," she said,"that legislation is responsible for how we got to where we are at now."