There have been so many examples of pure Republican idiocy since the '60's, I don't know why we bother to notice anymore. One serious issue seldom raised is the -- god, it must be gi-normous -- amount of money wasted by Republicans in Congress alone. I'm talking about unnecessary delays, Punch-and-Judy sparring, time-consuming droning, tanning booths and booze, sex and religion, and self-gratifying motives for all of these actions that are as transparent as the space between their ears.
Finally, and with no help from the Congressional Republicans, we have our Constitutional postal service back, still surviving in spite of expensive artillery aimed at it for months... years. Kevin Drum does a triumphal march through the achievement: caps on USPS execs' pay, overnight local delivery, and the appeals process strengthened when a post office is threatened with closure.
Drum's summation is perfect. It looks as though, in spite of the win, most of us Americans are still stuck in the drunk tank with the wingnuts -- half of whom belong in special care and the other half in prison.
Do you notice anything missing? Let me think.
Oh yeah: there's nothing in there about allowing the postal service to increase postal rates. This is crazy. Take a look at countries around the world that have smaller volumes of mail than us: they all charge higher postage rates. They have to. And as volumes keep declining in America, we're going to need higher rates here too. Right now, a first-class equivalent stamp runs 75¢ in Germany, 72¢ in Britain, 82¢ in France, 98¢ in Switzerland, 97¢ in Belgium, and 63¢ in the Netherlands. There's no way that we can stay at 45¢ as volumes decline and pretend that somehow everything will be hunky-dory.
But allowing the price of a stamp to go up is apparently even more of a political taboo than closing rural post offices. I suppose Democrats are afraid of annoying granny and Republicans are so intent on busting the postal carriers union that they don't like the idea of anything that brings in more revenue. We are ruled by idiots. [emphasis added] ...Kevin Drum, Mother Jones
