A Note to Congress

http://directorblue.blogspot.com/2009/08/to-congress.html


To the Congress:

The U.S. Postal Service was established in 1775 - you have had 234 years to get it right; it is broke.

Social Security was established in 1935 - you have had 74 years to get it right; it is broke.

Fannie Mae was established in 1938 - you have had 71 years to get it right; it is broke.

The "War on Poverty" started in 1964 - you have had 45 years to get it right; $1 trillion of our money is confiscated each year and transferred to "the poor"; it hasn't worked and our entire country is broke.

Medicare and Medicaid were established in 1965 - you've had 44 years to get it right; they are broke.

Freddie Mac was established in 1970 - you have had 39 years to get it right; it is broke.

Trillions of dollars were spent in the massive political payoffs called TARP, the "Stimulus", the Omnibus Appropriations Act of 2009... none show any signs of working, although ACORN appears to have found a new b***h: the American taxpayer.

And finally, to set a new record:

"Cash for Clunkers" was established in 2009 and went broke in 2009! It took good dependable cars (that were the best some people could afford) and replaced them with high-priced and less-affordable cars, mostly Japanese. A good percentage of the profits went out of the country. And the American taxpayers take the hit for Congress' generosity in burning three billion more of our dollars on failed experiments.

So with a perfect 100% failure rate and a record that proves that "services" you shove down our throats are failing faster and faster, you want Americans to believe you can be trusted with a government-run health care system?

20% of our entire economy?

With all due respect,

Are you f***ing crazy?

**********************************************************

My thoughts exactly.

Mike

Cmon,

They know what's best for you.

ISO,

Don't confuse us with the facts. Nice post!

Captain

The Republican party was founded in 1854. You've had 155 years to get it right; It is broke.

There are a lot of inaccuracies in that RWWJ circulating email...don't believe it all just 'cuz you want to.

Fish on...

Todd

Shhh...if you repeat it over and over it eventually becomes truth.

Yeah, sometimes you gotta "catapult the propaganda"...like catapult it into the "truth" by saying it over and over again.

Fish on...

Todd

so stlhead...keep telling yourself "I am funny"

Hey Todd, why don't you specify the inaccuracies for us?

You mean like the ticker bar on Fox?

Where to begin?

Medicare is NOT broke regardless of what FOX News says... and any issues with it stem from having a huge amount of new benefit recipients (the baby boomers) coming into the system. Without Medicare, MILLIONS of senior citizens who aren't rich would have no healthcare coverage at all and would be left to die... just like the GOP wants it.

Social Security isn't broke either. In fact, it is guaranteed to be solvent at least until 2044. Yes, it is facing some problems... but again, these stem MORE from the amount of benefit recipients, than from administrative ineptitude.


The USPS may not be the posterchild of efficiency... BUT NO ONE else could deliver a letter to your house for $.44.

Fannie Mae had been a smashing success up until the GOP's economic guru Senator Phil Gramm came up with the brilliant idea to de-regulate the investment banking industry.

Freddie Mac... same thing.

TARP was the brainchild of BUSH Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson and BUSH Fed Chairman Benjamin Bernanke... and the need for it stems from the very SAME de-regulation that the GOP pushed through.

The Omnibus bill was a consolidation of spending proposals from fiscal year 2009... which runs from September, 2008 to September, 2009. MOST of the budget appropriations in it were authored by... ready for it... the BUSH administration!

The Economic Stimulus Plan was designed to be phased in over the course of 3 years. We are currently in the initial stages of it's implementation and ALREADY the economic indicators are positive for recovery. Unemployment statistics are a lagging indicator... and even as such, it appears that the unemployment rate is leveling off. The DOW, NASDAQ and the S&P 500 have all made significant gains since they bottomed out in January of 2009... BEFORE Obama took office. Even the housing market is showing signs of recovery!

To say that the Stimulus is a failure already means that you lack the cognitive capacity to understand the nuances of macro-economics... and you would rather just regurgitate something you heard Rush say.

And finally... Cash for Clunkers. Despite wingnut popular wisdom... the program did NOT go broke. In fact, it was such a success that the Senate appropriated another 2 billion dollars to the initial 1 billion. It did EXACTLY what it was designed to do... which was to stimulate car buying. A lot of other industries are tied to automobile manufacturing and a lot of jobs were either created or saved by the increase in car sales.

OK... so a lot of Japanese cars were sold during the program. Guess what... MOST Japanese cars sold in America are made right here... which definitely helped those workers in States like Tennessee and Alabama where the bulk of them are made.

Wingnut chain e-mails... DEFINITELY for the feeble-minded.

A couple of issues Webo. 1) There was way more involved with Fannie and Freddie than just Phil Gramm and 2) Cash for Clunkers, if you run out of money and have to dump a bunch more in, then it went broke. The program was run so efficiently that the dealers are still waiting to get paid and the call centers had to be manned by the FAA employees. Finally, if the economy is already on its way back and the stimulus has just started to work then cancel it and save us a whole pile of dough.

http://www.nytimes.com/1999/09/30/business/fannie-mae-eases-credit-to-aid-mortgage-lending.html

4salt, I heard about ten heads explode from way over here.

I know DB.

But hey... we're throwin' "factoids" around in this thread fairly loosely anyway and the average wingnut attention span is but a few sentences... so I thought I would accommodate them.

Cash for Clunkers didn't go broke. They started with a finite dollar amount... burned through that dollar amount quicker than expected... and added more. It wasn't a payoff of anything... it was a promotion and it worked!

The dealers will get their money.

Maybe they will? Most of the money hasn't even been spent yet. In fact, I believe that only about 80 of the 787 billion has.

Cash for clunkers was nothing more than ANOTHER bailout for the auto industry.

Yup, like bailouts for all of corp america or defense contractors or.....what's the difference? There is no such thing as capitalism.

I'm far from the most informed guy on these issues, but I gotta admit I am constistently amazed by how cheap and efficient the US Mail service is. For 44c I can get stuff to any mailbox in the USA--no matter how remote, and cross town stuff works often in 1 day.

The people at the post office COUNTER are a complete disaster, but the system itself is borderline amazing to me.

If you asked me how much *I* would guess it would cost to run a service like that -- complete with daily home pick-up and delivery, I'd have guessed *way way* more.

nynook, if you need more, let me know...I might be able to add a bit to what IR and 4S said, but I don't think I really need to.

The USPS was much more efficient, relatively speaking, before the use of the internet became ubiquitous. With the advent of email and online bill pay, revenue for the Postal Service has dropped exponentially.

Most important part of this thread, just like the thread about the Cash for Clunkers program stealing all of our computers and everything in them, is don't believe the drivel that idiots send you in their email lists...if it was true and important, you wouldn't get it via an anonymous email passed from wingnut to wingnut around the cybersphere.

Fish on...

Todd

USPS is just another socialist government program.Why should it cost the same to send a letter cross town as it does to send it across the country?

Because to build and maintain a system that charges varying rates for a letter would be expensive, very cumbersome to use and how would you, the customer, know how many stamps to use? Then you have the "what do we do with all of the letters that didn't have enough postage"? All adds up to more costs and higher postage rates not less. FEDEX and UPS have similar options now. Ship it anywhere for the same price. Airborne Express started that.

People don't see the big picture when they ask for the USPS to change it's methods. Some changes would require all of corporate America to also change. Most corps use a purchased software, or hire an outside company who uses the software, for processing outgoing mail. I think the most popular one is still made by Pitney Bowes called Finalist. It will do a best match on the address, add the +4 to the zip, can bar code and calculate rates based upon the weight and negotiated USPS rates which are based upon volume. The USPS produces updates of addresses and zips quarterly. Remember that all new development means new addresses and those are all added to a database. Also remember that via typos, etc customer accts aren't always created with an accurate address. So the software will do a best match for the envelope and produce a report so someone can rectify the acct. On top of that many businesses then send their mail out to a consolidator who then resorts the bulk mail with mail from other businesses consolidating into an even higher volume and an even cheaper rate with the USPS which they split the difference with each other. All this happens over night and requires lots of sorting and printing machines. It's a huge thing to change across the board.