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Sometimes El Presidente is the gift that keeps on giving. Especially when he says things like this…

Does anyone know of any ‘Government Run Program’ in history that has worked effieciently and stayed within budget ?
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Obama is anti-American … He and his 57 States.

By now, everyone knows the Joker lies. You did watch “Dark Knight” didn’t you?

Republican Congressman Spencer Bachus told the Tuscaloosa News: “Social Security could face default within two years.

The date that Social Security outlays exceed revenues has moved up due to the recession. It was supposed to be 2017.

For years, Progressives have been telling us that this date was meaningless because there is a file full of T-bills in West Virginia which were the IOUs the government has been issuing in lieu of spending the “excess” Social Security revenue as part of the budget.

Well surprise .. surprise .. the date is not meaningless.

This was mentioned in the past, but some were proud to do nothing (go to 0:54)

Two words tell the tale.

Postal Union.

Does anyone know of any ‘Government Run Program’ in history that has worked effieciently and stayed within budget ?

Well, its not a Government run program, but they always seem to remember to vote themselves a pay raise… 😛

This is deceitful on several levels- (1)- Comparing anything that isn’t rusted beyond repair to the Post Office is unfair to the P.O.- it will always fall short, because it is government- subsidized., and(2)- there’s a big tussle going on between UPS and FedEx, because UPS is heavily unionized, and FedEx is less so. So the government, along with several conservatives (oddly enough) like Grover Norquist are trying to get the unions a toehold into FedEx, so that the unions can strike easier and have work stoppages as easily as they now can at UPS.

Isn’t the post office one of the better run government programs? And it still sucks? And still can’t compete with private companies (shock surprise)? So if the post office is over 200 years old and it still doesn’t get it right (keep in mind we are sending letters here, not brain surgery – literally), what makes the government think that a public (government) option would be equal or better for health care? According to the usps history, it was started in 1775 under B. Franklin… I mean, the means of delivering mail might have changed, but c’mon, its still mail. Not operating on cancer and delicate brain surgeries. Much less be in charge of coming up with new cures that aren’t tainted by government policies and bureaucrats.

So when do I get my check from the republican party for spreading lies?

Technically, liam, the USPS is an “independent” agency that doesn’t fall under the cabinet departments of the Executive branch. Instead, it’s in that vague “4th branch” of agencies that grows wildly year after year, and falls generically under the Executive branch. They hire civilians, use civilian fleets.

As a hybrid, in some ways like the GSEs (Fannie, Freddie, Ginny Mae) they function like a business, supporting their own costs via services. They do get a small amount of taxpayer assist… something like $95 mil annually, for the postal service fund. This is to cover costs for postage-free mailing for all legally blind persons and for mail-in election ballots sent from US citizens living overseas. Some of the funding also pays for providing address information to state and local child support enforcement agencies, and for keeping some rural posts offices in operation.

Frankly, the USPS is the only quasi-government entity I found impressive. It was, up to a few years ago, mildly to reasonably successful and met it’s mandate to be revenue neutral. And you have to admit, being able to send a letter anywhere in the US for 44 cents is still quite a feat. Not to mention the postal service is a tasked to the feds via the Constitution.

The USPS fell on hard times for a couple of reasons… first the price of fuel and running the fleet really took it’s toll. That additional overhead was compounded by the drop in useage of snail mail for electronic and cell communication. Frankly, most just don’t send letters anymore when you can pick up a phone, dash off an email or log in to a chat room.

Rather like any other business, they must either accommodate rates to adjust for less volume and higher overhead, or start letting staff go and downsizing. Right now they are in a freeze… no new hiring, and no transfers… even straight across from one facility to the next. They are offering early retirement, but will substandard packages. I know of no one willing to head out early, and give up the larger pension with a few more years of service. So they are toughing it it out, hoping they are there long enough to collect the full bennies package.

So in some ways, likening O’healthcare to the USPS is an ill-thought analogy. The proposed “public option” is not an “independent agency” that is revenue neutral, and running on civilian manpower and fleets. Instead, it is fully funded on taxpayers’ dollars.

That the clown sitting in the Oval Office is so clueless as to their status and method of operations is plainly embarrassing.

The dilemma with USPS involves Civil Service Rules, Huge honking volumes of Postal Regulations, the maintenance of facilities to serve the needs of the Citizenry all across the Country, the Postal Unions, the massive Management infrastructure with over inflated Salaries and Bonuses.

The USPS is a behemoth that is reluctant as to adapt to the changes of the electronic age as it was years ago when Fed Ex and UPS was innovative enough to grab the parcel business. Fed Ex & UPS will ship goods that the USPS won’t. Ever try to ship a firearm or ammunition?USPS won’t touch it.

Obama does know how any business works and could not run a lemonade stand for a profit. All he knows is Bread and Circus. That makes him a one termer. His sense of how the economy works has resulted in the train wreck of every Government Program out there. If he runs health care as well as cash for clunkers we are in very deep crap.

While the USPS isn’t the VA (yet)- it still is fairly moribund, and must be “rescued” every ten to fifteen years, with ever more Federal revenue. I too have more admiration for the USPS than I do many other govt. programs where they seemingly just rake all the money together like leaves and burn it, but now Hussein and the unions want to bring UPS and FedEx down to the level of the USPS, and that is just wrong.
We could probably have a lively back and forth on the unions and their role in the destruction of America today, but suffice it to say for now that they are trying their best to ensure that your packages go only as fast as their bosses have decided.

And to Neo- Social Security is already past the point of no return- where do you think the first stimulus came from? (OK, and China too)- but that is way gone money- we might as well all go buy lotto tix- the “redneck IRA”- because we are never going to see any of that money we’ve given the government to hold for us.
I have operated my life with one dictum- if you are my friend, I try not to put temptation in your way. Everyone’s weak- just some in one way, others in other ways. For example- if you have a problem keeping your hands off of women, I won’t ask you to look in on my wife.
Well, the government has a problem with money- but in this case, I was compelled by law to give them their weakness- I can’t be held too liable for their falling off of the wagon, especially as I did not elect most of them.

Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery. – Winston Churchill.

More info:
Debt, Legal Problems Plague Obama-Touted Healthcare Reforms in Mass., Tenn.

http://americandaily.com/index.php/article/1956

I am trying very hard to get the Republican party to take up Obama’s comparison of the Post Office to government health care and running hard with it. IT is a near perfect comparison of all that is WROG with Obamacare, and an utterly amazing thing that Obama put it inot our hands by hishollyness own edict.

ONLY the Post Office is allowed to deliver regular mail along with other restrictions on the services Fed Ex and UPS can provide. Can you name any other enterprise where the government directly competes with the private sector, without negatively impacting the private sectors ability to provide services and artificial price controls?

Another note on the Post Office analogy, I have used the post office exactly twice in the last year. Both time because a government agency insisted that I US Mail them a form. For the vast majority of the last few years, I have paid to subsidize the US Post Office, even when I do not use it, Is this how Gov Health Care will go, where we all pay for something only a few will use, by virtue of general tax and exclusive market shares?

The Obamassia has held out a fuse to explode the benevolvent Gov Health Care myth. I say we light it.

Socialism is inseparably interwoven with totalitarianism and the object worship of the state…. No socialist system can be established without a political police. They would have to fall back on some form of Gestapo, no doubt very humanely directed in the first instance. – Winston Churchill.

The key to getting Government responsive and responsible is the 2010 election. Removing the enablers and buffoons in Congress is step one. Killing the distribution of unspent TARP funds and the rest of ARRA spending is step two. After that a Congress that will not rubber stamp further New Programs or earmarks that constitute waste, fraud and abuse is step three. I could go on but the Government needs a cleaning and a twelve step program that could be patterned after AA. That may sound harsh but it is necessary. Let Team Obama have their ability to burn tax money be neutered by a Congress that is not beholden to Unions, ACORN or Lobbyists.

And NO I am not running for office. My Social skills are not up to that. A Harry Reid, Frank, Dodd, Schumer or Rahm that got in my face would get a thrashing just to get their attention. Taking Government back needs to be a civil process. By ballots, not fisticuffs or bullets like some of my neighbors have discussed over drinks. When honest working folks fear their government there is a disconnect with the voters that needs some healing. The words arrogance and tyranny have been heard up here in Montana in my circle.

We are not a populous State so we have 2 Senators and 1 House Member. Our State legislature is in session from January until the end of April to do the States business. Congress needs to do the same and get their noses out of the trough. The same with the Senate. They need to find legitimate employment for the rest of the year. The Founding Fathers never planned on the Bread & Circus that Career Politicians have created in DC. They certainly would not believe the mischief that Government done for the past four decades. From the Great Society to Obama’s American Entitlement Nation it has been like a plague of locusts gnawing away at the US Treasury and the Public Trust.

I firmly support implementation of the 10th Amendment limits to the power of the Federal Government, NOW!

@MataHarley:
ouch, “ill-thought analogy”? I get your point for sure, though.

Like I stated (more in question form), the USPS is one of the better run government programs. Even though health care would have its own distinctions (and would be truly government), they would still be government defined and regulated just like the USPS. If you commit a crime against the usps, its federal in almost every case. Either way, its the government arm (long or short) controlling bits and pieces of this moving machine called the U.S. There are countless other federal arms that reach into our lives. I have become less forgiving about their classification and more critical about their purpose. I find it hard to classify myself even as a republican, unless I am voting. I am a conservative; ready for the reform of real hope and change of our country. As usual, the left took those terms of good, and corrupted it for their own evil. Idealism is their party’s mantra.

liam09: ouch…

LOL! Liam, I do believe I was directing that at the bozo-in-chief, and not you. So sorry if you miscon-screwed it, guy. heh

But just a few comments on your latest. And mind you, I’m not in disagreement with your base beliefs. Just finessing your debate, so to speak.

Even though health care would have its own distinctions (and would be truly government), they would still be government defined and regulated just like the USPS. If you commit a crime against the usps, its federal in almost every case.

First on the latter, it is “federal” in *every* case. Because the postal service is part of our Constitution, it is federal in nature, and one of those few tasks genuinely allocated to the feds. Therefore, break federal laws (anything involving the USPS), you are in federal court jurisdiction. This is not the same as being federally operated. There isn’t a private enterprise in this country that doesn’t deal with federal mandates.

O’healthcare is subject to federal mandates, AND federally operated.

Any criminal investigation involving the USPS will begin with a (or several) federal agency(ies)… i.e. IRS, FBI, SEC, DEA, ATF, Postal Inspectors, ICE, U.S. Marshals, or any other federal law enforcement arm. This does not mean, however, that state laws could also be broken simultaneously, and those prosecuted in the state’s criminal courts as well. The charges that break federal law are dealt with federally. The state laws dealt with in state courts. You cannot be prosecuted for mail fraud only in a state court. You can, however, be prosecuted in both a federal and state court if you commit mail fraud and violated state commerce laws simultaneously.

The trick that still is missed by all too many is that making health care either a “federal single payer system” via multiple steps, or federalizing it with standards and central/federal government operation, is simply contrary to the 10th Amendment. The fact is health care mandates in NJ or NY are not the same as they are in IA or TX. And, in fact, the injuries, illness and health care needs can differ greatly from urban to rural areas.

To “federalize” health care coverage is to trample state’s rights. Herein lies the quandary of making health care coverage “portable”. You can’t take your IA, MT, SD, or ID coverage to NJ, MA or NY because you are not in compliance with their state law. The latter mandates additional coverage and services than the former.

So I do “get” the concept and advantages of “portability”. What I genuinely can’t reconcile is this cost saving at the expense of states’ rights… whether I agree with their laws or not. They have the right to regulate when it is not in conflict with federal law. If you don’t like their state laws, you move… or fight to change them. It’s the way this nation was set up.

This, of course, brings us to the burning question. If O’healthcare wants “portability”, are they going to use the most heavily regulated state as their “base” coverage mandates? And does this prevent states from tagging on even *more* stringent demands at will, again making it un-portable?

So I guess what I would question is your idea that the public option would “…be government defined and regulated just like the USPS.” The states have absolutely no power in regulating the USPS. However they do have the right to regulate health care. It’s a double whammy, and certainly doesn’t make your scenario more rosy. LOL

I am a conservative; ready for the reform of real hope and change of our country. As usual, the left took those terms of good, and corrupted it for their own evil.

Couldn’t have said it better. I am a RINO myself…. a conservative, registered Republican because of the pipedream I could have a say in the Oregon primary. (ha) But I am a conservative/independent in all action and philosophy. I tend to think most Americans are a mixture of all parties. They just haven’t figured out what each party is really about. My next door neighbor thinks she’s a Democrat/liberal… until we talk. Then she finds out how “conservative” she really is. These party labels really don’t fit the population. But they’re good for party advertising fodder.

Personally, I’d like to take the lot of ’em and throw them out, back to Mickey D’s for a life’s lesson.

The simplest thing I have been able to come up with is to throw them all put-If it was a Dem in office, put a Repub in- reverse that if it was a Repub in office—- All new people,  with two term limits, but we will toss them out after one if they suck.
Mata- you know what they say about a liberal- they are a conservative who hasn’t been mugged.