The Post Office is almost broke—on purpose?

This isn't an "email takes over" story, as the Times falsely (in my opinion) is claiming. It's a "privatize government services" story — and a horrible one.

Short version: The government is conspiring to kill either the Post Office, or postal unions, or both.

First, the NY Times version (my emphasis):

Postal Service Is Nearing Default as Losses Mount

The United States Postal Service has long lived on the financial edge, but it has never been as close to the precipice as it is today: the agency is so low on cash that it will not be able to make a $5.5 billion payment due this month and may have to shut down entirely this winter unless Congress takes emergency action to stabilize its finances.

“Our situation is extremely serious,” the postmaster general, Patrick R. Donahoe, said in an interview. “If Congress doesn’t act, we will default.”

In recent weeks, Mr. Donahoe has been pushing a series of painful cost-cutting measures to erase the agency’s deficit, which will reach $9.2 billion this fiscal year. They include eliminating Saturday mail delivery, closing up to 3,700 postal locations and laying off 120,000 workers — nearly one-fifth of the agency’s work force — despite a no-layoffs clause in the unions’ contracts.

The post office’s problems stem from one hard reality: it is being squeezed on both revenue and costs.

That $5.5 billion payment that's due on Sept. 30 is meant to finance future health care costs for retirees. Here's the Times on the cause of the Post Office's financial woes:

Mail volume has plummeted with the rise of e-mail, electronic bill-paying and a Web that makes everything from fashion catalogs to news instantly available.

Wrong. The Post Office is being killed by the Obama-appointed Postmaster General. [CORRECTED: See here; also here.] Here's Kenneth Quinnell at Crooks & Liars to explain:

United States Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe is on record as also proposing cuts to postal employees' health and pension benefits. National Association of Letter Carriers President Fredric Rolando sees clear signs that Donahoe is intent on attacking the collective bargaining rights of postal workers and that he wants to "override lay-off protection provisions in the postal unions’ contracts." In a recent white paper titled "Workforce Optimization," the Postal Service directly asked Congress to void lay-off protection provisions. The USPS developed its proposals without any input from NALC or any other unions.

Rolando lays out the real root of the problem: "The problem lies elsewhere: the 2006 congressional mandate that the USPS pre-fund future retiree health benefits for the next 75 years, and do so within a decade, an obligation no other public agency or private firm faces. The roughly $5.5 billion annual payments since 2007 — $21 billion total — are the difference between a positive and negative ledger."

That's the proximate cause. But there's a more basic reason. Quinnell notes:

The Postal Service hasn't used any taxpayer funding for more than twenty-five years. It pays for it's operations through the sale of it's services and products. In the past four years, operational revenues at the USPS have exceeded costs by $611 million. Customer satisfaction and delivery of the mail on time are at record highs.

Wonder what happened 25 years ago. Did some government-killing privatize-freak become president, or something?

Think broadly about the Post Office. Should mail delivery be an essential government service, or something that should be forced to make a profit to survive?

The Constitution considers it a service. The Cato Institute, among many others, thinks the way to make postal service cheaper is to add private profit on top of its other costs.

Wonder what Obama thinks, or the Postmaster General, Mr. Donahoe.

[UPDATE: Corrected for accuracy.]

GP Read the rest of this post...

Polls showed people like Jimmy Carter personally as well

My friend Ryan Biava pointed out the following from an article about Jimmy Carter back in 2009:

To a young new president who has promised transparency in the White House, the speech offers a vivid instance of openness and trust in the public. Carter confessed some fundamental shortcomings -- well beyond Obama's "as a former smoker I constantly struggle with it" admission -- and called out the public on its failings. And to a new president who claims to eschew ideology in favor of pragmatism, Carter's week-long summit with the American people -- and Caddell's deep reading of contemporary arguments and popular books -- suggest an eagerness to raise new ideas in the public square.

Now, with the economy again in crisis and Iran again in turmoil, the parallels between the eras are hard to ignore. Obama speaks of restoring confidence in the markets and the government. As a final lesson, he might heed some polling data that Caddell shared with Democratic leaders in the weeks before Carter's speech. Caddell found that Americans had faith in Carter personally -- in his "trustworthiness" and "dedication" -- but many worried that he was "generally not in control of things."

Obama certainly fulfills the first half of that assessment. In three years or so, we'll know if he avoided the second.

As Ryan explained:

Democrats should stop reassuring themselves by arguing that the public still likes Obama despite his political shortcomings. The same was true of Carter prior to the implosion of his administration.

Note that in the most recent polls, the President still polls high on likeability - and it seems the White House takes some solace in that. This is a warning that likeability may not be enough. Read the rest of this post...

Crazy Georgian GOP Rep. latest to boycott Obama’s jobs speech

From Yahoo's "The Ticket":

When President Obama delivers his address on a new job-creation plan to a joint session of Congress on Thursday, he won't be speaking to a sold-out crowd. Several lawmakers are still determining whether it is worth their time to stay in Washington to hear the president, and some are already planning to skip it.

[GOP Rep. Paul] Broun remained in his office during Obama's State of the Union address in January, providing his own commentary on the social networking website throughout the speech.

"Mr. President, you don't believe in the Constitution. You believe in socialism," one of Broun's tweets read.

It's not entirely clear why Republicans think it wise to boycott a presidential address about "jobs."

As for the President believing in socialism, someone should ask "Dr." Broun, as he likes to be called, to define "socialism."  Five will get you ten he can't.

Oh, and here's as surprise - he's from the south.  Georgia to be exact. Read the rest of this post...

How Twitter is hurting the blogosphere (and more generally Web sites)

The thrust of the story is that people no longer need to visit blogs, or other Web sites that update content, because they can simply read the headlines on Twitter and then go to the sites only if they see something that really and truly peaks their interest.  I.e., no more browsing sites just to see what's there.

In a way it's what happened to newspapers first.  I stopped reading the Washington Post print edition because it was easier to read it online.  But even online, I don't read the paper religiously every day, if only because there's so much competition from other papers.  More often than not, I see something on Twitter about an article in the Post, then if I'm interested, I go to the Post and read the article.

All of this means less traffic for blogs, but really less traffic for lots of other sites too.  And that means less revenue, which matters if you care about the blogs you follow and the newspapers you read. Read the rest of this post...

The danger of validating GOP talking points on the deficit

Greg Sargent over at the Washington Post has an excellent post about the larger implications of the White House having caved on GOP demands to roll back anti-smog regulations:

Now Bruce Bartlett has a good post spelling this out. He seizes on Obama’s decision to withdraw an Environmental Protection Agency regulation that’s widely supported by scientists, and argues that it validates the conservative frame that regulation is a drag on the economy.

In a particularly good line, Bartlett adds the crucial point that the public can’t be blamed for internalizing the conservative worldview, given that liberal economics has been entirely marginalized from our political conversation:

In a courtroom, justice requires that both sides be equally well represented. If one doesn’t do its job properly, the jury cannot be blamed for a wrong result. If Democrats are going to accept Republican premises, they shouldn’t be surprised if a majority of people eventually conclude that Republicans ought to be in charge of government policy.

Atrios also puts the point really well, noting that by validating the GOP view that deficits must be dealt with right way, Dems are not neutralizing the issue, but are actually making voters think Republicans are right about what’s important:

The problem that arises is that if you start beating the deficit drum, then you haven’t made voters “trust you” on the deficit, you’ve made the case to voters that they should elect the Republicans who will be better on this very important issue ... If you make the case that Republican issues are important, you’re making the case for ... Republicans.

As it happens, this point is supported by the political science literature, which endorses a venerable concept known as “agenda setting.” The more the public hears about the importance of an issue, the more the public thinks it’s important. And it’s also supported by polling, which has found that during all the deficit and austerity chatter we’ve also seen a substantial swing in support for the GOP idea that spending cuts will create jobs.

To paraphrase Atrios, if a Democrat is going to adopt Republican memes, you can't blame the public for voting for the people best able to implement those memes, Republicans themselves.  Let's face it - if the public really wants to cut the budget and get rid of all those pesky regulations that are supposedly "killing jobs," then a Republican is going to take a much more extensive swipe at both than Barack Obama ever would.

Also, Greg's last paragraph about "agenda setting" is particularly important.  It's what Republicans do, they talk a point to death, then talk about it some more.  It's what Democrats do NOT do (Democrats think that if they issue one press release, or give one speech, that this constitutes a full-blown PR campaign - it doesn't). Read the rest of this post...

Stiglitz: "President wasn’t willing to fight... for the kind of stimulus that the economy really needed"

Nobel economist Joe Stiglitz, in an interview with Chris and me in Paris on August 28, 2011.

The advisers that they had, economic advisers, partly because they were complicitous in the creation of the crisis, these were people who were involved in deregulation, wanted to believe that the economic downturn was more limited than it really was.  So they were more optimistic about the economy so they thought less was needed than was really needed.  And the President evidently wasn't willing to fight in a way that he might have had to fight for the kind of stimulus that the economy really needed.

Read the rest of this post...

Only 32% of Democrats approve of the direction the country is going

More bad news for President Obama in today's Washington Post/ABC News poll.

The sense of deflation is particularly apparent among Democrats, with nearly two-thirds saying things are pretty seriously off on the wrong track. The percentage of Democrats saying things are headed in the right direction has cratered from 60 percent at the start of the year to 32 percent now.

Among political independents — a prime target of Obama’s new outreach — 78 percent see the country as off-kilter. The percentage saying so in January 2009 was 79 percent. Pessimism was even higher among independents — and everyone else — during the depth of the financial crisis in late 2008. But for Obama, things are back to square one.

Obama’s overall approval rating is down 11 percentage points from the start of the year. The only other time a majority disapproved of his handling of the presidency in Post-ABC polling was a year agoafter another rough summer.

For the first time, fewer than half of Americans between the ages of 18 and 29 give the president positive marks. Young voters broke overwhelmingly for Obama in 2008, but just 47 percent of those under age 30 now approve of the way he is doing his job; just as many disapprove.[Emphasis added]

It's hard to see how President Obama can win re-election if Democrats don't think the country is going in the right direction, independents thing the economy sucks, and a minority of young people approve of his job performance. Read the rest of this post...

Iowa AG Tom Miller offers a broad "bank settlement" proposal

Shahien Nasiripour of Financial Times reports that the fifty forty-six state group of attorneys general lead by Iowa's Tom Miller has offered the banking industry new settlement terms in their negotiations around robosigning. As has been feared, Nasiripour reports that the Miller group is offering a release not just on robosigning and loss mitigation problems, but securitization fraud too. Nasiripour reports:

The talks aim to settle allegations that banks including Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Citigroup and Ally Financial seized the homes of delinquent borrowers and broke state laws by employing so-called “robosigners”, workers who signed off on foreclosure documents en masse without reviewing the paperwork.

State prosecutors have proposed effectively releasing the companies from legal liability for allegedly wrongful securitisation practices, according to five people with direct knowledge of the discussions

Keep in mind that the largest outcry from Eric Schneiderman and a few other AGs to the direction of the Miller talks was that they were going to include release for areas beyond the issues at hand without there being any investigation into the depth of wrongdoing. Looks like Schneiderman was right about the direction Miller was taking the settlement negotiations in. Worse, the banks are rejecting this release of liability:

However, the banks – some of whose share prices have been battered by concern about their exposure to mortgage-related litigation – are pressing for immunity from a raft of alleged civil violations and have called the latest proposal a “non-starter”.

They say the proposals from state prosecutors will need to be expanded before striking a deal, which is expected to involve a total penalty of $10bn to $25bn.

Naturally. With both Miller and the Obama administration seeking to have this problem behind them as swiftly as possible while leaving the current banking system untouched, it's likely that the banks will be able to get more concessions out of Miller. But since people like Schneiderman, Beau Biden of Delaware, Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada, and Martha Coakley of Massachusetts aren't going to play ball on a deal that prevents them from doing their own investigations into securities fraud, I don't know the value of further concessions, at least in so far as getting a deal that actually covers all fifty states. As long as there is no agreement about what banks get released from and how much it will cost them to get such a release, there will be no settlement deal. Read the rest of this post...

NBC/WSJ poll: "Obama is no longer the favorite to win re-election"

A new poll from NBC/WSJ is chock full of data that is pretty bad for everyone, Ds and Rs.

People want the super-committee to increase taxes and leave Medicare alone:

In the poll, 60 percent say it would be acceptable if the "super committee" considers reducing the deficit by ending the so-called Bush tax cuts for families earning $250,000 or more per year. Moreover, 56 percent say it would be acceptable if it considers reducing the deficit by a combination of tax increases and spending cuts.

By comparison, just 37 percent believe it’s acceptable for the committee to reduce the deficit by only cutting spending and not raising taxes on corporations and the wealthy. And only 20 percent say it’s acceptable to lower the deficit by reducing spending on Medicare.

Now keep in mind that in the past, high poll numbers - the public option (70% support) and "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" (80% support) come to mind - did not necessarily translate into an increased push by the President for those popular items.

In terms of 2012, while Obama still beats the GOP presidential candidates, he now loses to a generic GOP presidential candidate:

What's more, in a hypothetical general election contest, Obama leads Texas Gov. Rick Perry by five points, 47 percent to 42 percent. And he leads former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney by one, 46 percent to 45 percent, though that margin is down five points since June.

But for the first time in the poll, more say they'd probably vote for a generic Republican candidate (44 percent) than say they'd probably vote for Obama (40 percent).

"Obama is no longer the favorite to win re-election," Hart said, explaining that a head-to-head score will usually conform to the generic one, especially when so many believe the country is headed in the wrong direction.

There's lots more in the poll, and it's bad for the President and Congress, Ds and Rs (though Obama does have high ratings on likeability, fighting terrorism, and foreign policy).

It seems that Republican intransigence, alongside our growing economic disaster, is having a predictable "plague o' both your houses" reaction from the public. I say predictable because I don't think the public would blame Democrats nearly as much for our current ills if the President would simply start pointing more fingers. Read the rest of this post...

Romney's economic plan: more tax cuts

When is a senior Democrat going to ask for proof that tax cuts actually work? We've had ten years of this extremist experiment yet the jobs aren't arriving. More of the same makes no sense but it's even worse when the president and the Democratic party don't call out this lie. Reuters:

Romney will release his jobs plan in Nevada on Tuesday.

"I will pare back regulation, including eliminating 'ObamaCare,'" Romney said, using the derogatory term favored by critics of President Barack Obama's healthcare overhaul.

"I will direct every government agency to limit annual increases in regulatory costs to zero," he said. "Every one of President Obama's regulations must be scrutinized, and those that unduly burden job creation must be axed."

Our center-right president is already there on less regulation and now he's targeting more tax cuts in his big plan. This time they're for the middle class but it's really time to raise taxes at the top. But that's probably considered mean, so heave knows he won't push for it. Read the rest of this post...

Matt Stoller: "Obama has ruined the Democratic party"

In an excellent Salon piece titled "What Democrats Can Do About Obama," Roosevelt Institute fellow (and ex-senior policy advisor for former Rep. Alan Grayson) Matt Stoller crystallizes the concerns many of us have about the President's reelection.

Stoller starts with Obama's low ratings and pivots to the real question facing anyone claiming to be a Democrat:

From the debt ceiling fiasco to the recent rescheduling of a jobs speech at the behest of Speaker Boehner, it has not been a good summer for President Obama. Like Chinese water torture, Gallup's daily tracking poll has shown a steady and unrelenting drip of bad news. He has been in and out of the high 30s for his approval, and in the low to mid-50s for his disapproval. ... Democrats may soon have to confront an uncomfortable truth, and ask whether Obama is a suitable choice at the top of the ticket in 2012. They may then have to ask themselves if there's any way they can push him off the top of the ticket.

It's the elephant (donkey?) in the room, and it needs saying. It also leads to other, even more painful considerations:

1. If Obama is unlikely to win, should he be backed?  

2. If the Democratic party is more loyal to Obama than to its own electoral and ideological interests, should it be backed?  

3. If the party is to be reformed, how should that be done?

These are questions that progressives in the leading edge of Obama-abandoners are wrestling with. For example, they came up a lot at Netroots Nation 2011. (My write-up of that discussion is here, about halfway down.)

Stoller's response begins like this:

That these questions have not yet been asked in any serious way shows how weak the Democratic Party is as a political organization. Yet this political weakness is not inevitable, it can be changed through courage and collective action by a few party insiders smart and principled enough to understand the value of a public debate, and by activists who are courageous enough to face the real legacy of the Obama years.

Obama has ruined the Democratic party.

That answers question (1). He then puts on his ex-politico hat and walks smartly through the 2008–2010 debacle.

As answer to questions (2) and (3), Stoller recommends returning the Democratic party to its original form.

There are obvious obstacles, of course. He describes a party locked into inflexibility by moneyed and conservative interests, and that inflexibility is ultimately party-killing:

In other words, party inflexibility has a price. If the economy worsens going into the fall, and the president continues as he has to attempt to cut Social Security, Democrats might be facing a Carter-Reagan scenario. Reagan, at first considered a lightweight candidate, ended up winning a landslide victory that devastated the Democratic Party in 1980. Carter wasn't the only loss; many significant liberal senators, such as George McGovern, John Culver and Birch Bayh, fell that year.

Especially deadly is the lay-down role of unions. (Reminder: The AFL-CIO was crucial in Reagan's destruction of the air traffic controllers union in 1981.)

But from that problem comes the opportunity. Stoller agrees, as I do, that a primary challenge is the route to take. (There's a sweet discussion of how Grover Cleveland in 1892 led to FDR in 1932, for you history fans.)

His recommendation is, in my view, both brilliant and doable — a strategy based on "favorite sons" running in state primaries and caucuses as Obama challengers. (His example is Tom Harkins of Iowa.) Running as a favorite son takes you off the hook for running for president, yet gives your state or region a place to vote anti-Obama. And many favorite sons running against Obama starts the intra-party discussion in earnest. (Favorite son candidacies are also orders of magnitude cheaper than national primary campaigns.)

The article is more fully and carefully reasoned than this summary; it's also both clear and accessible. Please to give it your consideration.

There is a route, folks, and I think Stoller has identified it. It involves party leaders standing up for the party (not just standing up for Obama); and union leaders actually representing workers (and not just their own seat at the Big Boy table). The choice for party leaders is clear — go down with Obama or up with a rebuilt party.

That's a pretty clear choice. In my view, this is actually Obama's gift to us — being so clearly unacceptible that he forces real change upon us. (How ironic. Imagine if Obama had been Clintonesque. For this, I own him lunch at least.)

This is a tough but doable path; thankfully, one that doesn't take a ton of national organizing to start. Stoller is not optimistic, but he's hopeful. (Hopeful — now there's a change.)

GP Read the rest of this post...