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For only 47 cents, you can purchase the best bargain in America: A “Forever” postage stamp.
Stick it on an envelope, drop it in a mail box, and our phenomenal network of postal workers and letter carriers will deliver it within two days right to your addressee in any of the 43,000 zip codes of this vast country. Also, that “Forever” stamp from our public postal service protects you from future increases in stamp prices. What a deal!
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But look out, for a cabal of corporate predators and Koch-headed ideologues are scheming to take “public” out of this public agency and strip “service” out of the US Postal Service by spreading a diabolical Big Lie. Their bogus claim is that this essential public service is a hopeless money loser, sucking billions from taxpayers every year. Unfortunately, our lazy media establishment keeps spreading their lie. Here’s an August New York Times article falsely asserting that “the Postal Service has sunk deeper underwater – net losses for the second quarter of 2016 were $2 billion.”
Bovine excrement! In fact, our Post Offices earned $1.3 billion IN PROFIT in that period – the fourth straight year it has operated in the black. The discrepancy stems from phony paper losses manufactured by corporate lobbyists and right-wing lawmakers who’ve insisted since 2006 that the Postal Service must pre-fund retiree health benefits for 75 years in the future. No other agency and no corporation operates under this absurd and totally unnecessary burden, which adds billions of dollars in fictional costs to the agency’s balance sheet every year.
Here’s another reality the sloppy corporate media ignores: Our postal network costs taxpayers zero, for it totally finances its operations by selling stamps and other services. To help put a Forever stamp on the Post Office itself, go to www.AGrandAlliance.org.
“A Mail Boat Stays Afloat,” New York Times, August 21, 2016.
USPS Third Quarter Financial Report