John Nichols article in The Nation poses the issue:
“The United States Postal Service is not broke.
It does not need to be downsized. Post offices do not need to be closed. Sorting centers do not need to be shuttered. Saturday service does not need to be scrapped. And hundreds of thousands of jobs in rural regions and urban neighborhoods do not need to be cut in a time of economic instability.
Yet, this week, the US Senate is debating about whether to advance a scheme that would begin a process of downsizing that—while not so immediately draconian as the plan advanced by House Oversight and Government Reform Committee chairman Darrel Issa (R-CA)—accepts the notion that the postal service’s future is one of closures and cuts. Ultimately, that downsizing points the postal in a direction where privatization could be inevitable.
But that does not have to be the case.”
While there is no question that the United States Postal Service has well served the citizens of this country, should the forces to privatize the service succeed a new model should be implemented, which would support what National Association of Letter Carriers President Fredric Rolando has called for: “What the Postal Service needs most is a new business model—built from the bottom up, one that looks above the immediate financial and structural problems to find opportunities to meet the evolving needs of the American people in the 21st century.”
Today we accept as normal public ownership of gigantic capital instruments like mass rail, subways, government office buildings, universities, water systems, and power systems. These government-owned enterprises and services could be transformed into competitive private sector companies managed by Private Facilities Corporations with the use of the asset or facility leased to the normal using body. The wages of the Private Facilities Corporation(s) are passed through to the leasing body. This would allow us to build the ownership of what is now public capital into individuals and reduce the cost of government, including public pension systems. Thus, when you build the ownership into the employees of the Private Facilities Corporation(s), who now have a vested interest in its quality of operation and maintenance, the contracted lease rental fee committed by the government entity will give the employee stockholders a reasonable return and lesson or replace the need for supplemental redistribution programs.
http://www.thenation.com/blog/167421/senate-can-and-should-save-postal-service
