“Mail is like oxygen. It’s there and you count on it, and you don’t get worried about it until it disappears. There is going to be concern by a lot of people if this goes away. The national concern is going to be enormous.” — Tonda Rush, president of the National Newspaper Association, commenting on the unraveling of the United States Postal Service

So here’s a radical idea for radical times: Nationalize the United States Post Office.

Just writing the words makes my eyes spin around in my head. The Ryan-esque view that it would un-American to un-privatize an operation like the United States Post Office is such a retromingent exercise in inverse reasoning that I regret not being clever enough to come up with a corporate flak-friendly name for it. Like right-sizing or blamestorming or activating synergies of scale.

Yet in the up-is-down, Bizarro World that is Washington, D.C., privatizing the United States Postal Service — Benjamin Franklin’s United States Post Office — makes Bizarro sense. Drape its coffin in a flag and watch right-thinking patriots salute as FedEx hauls it over to Arlington for burial.

There isn’t anything more core to what America’s founders thought government of, by and for the people is for than delivering the mail, except maybe raising an army. Both are authorized in the same article in the U.S. Constitution. (The tea party loves them some Article 1, Section 8.) Like the military, the United States Post Office is a public service as well as a public trust. And Republicans such as Congressman Darrel Issa (R-CA) want to privatized it because it doesn’t make a profit ? When did the U.S. Army ever turn a profit? This is how conservatives honor the founders’ vision? By dressing up like them and dismantling the country they shed blood to build?

Of course, Republicans (mostly) in Congress are hard at work on privatizing not just the United States Post Office, but the military, too, by diverting work traditionally done by GIs to for-profit, private contractors that can charge a tidy markup to cost-conscious American taxpayers. With hundreds of billions of public dollars on the table, the con is simple. More middle-man profit equals Freedom . No middle man profit equals Tyranny . It’s almost as if they want to dismantle the country’s core infrastructure, to strip America bare — like locusts — of every financial resource before moving on….

Speaking of tyranny, here’s Howie Klein at (Down With Tyranny):

There’s a lot of money to be made in privatizing the post office — not for us, of course, but Wall Street drools at the prospect. And, of course, Republicans and their Blue Dog allies are doing everything in their power to undermine and sabotage the post office for exactly that reason.

At the Huffington Post , Dave Jamieson examines what a post-post office America would look like. Take tiny Syria, Virginia, for example, where for over a hundred years the post office has resided in a walk-in closet-sized office inside Syria Mercantile Company, the village general store. Villagers faced with the closure of this resource may have to drive as far as 20 miles over back-country roads to mail a package or buy stamps.

The absurdity is the insistence by Congress that the United States Post Office operate as a profitable business or go “bankrupt.” As if a constitutionally authorized agency can? As if the Constitution or common sense requires it? Certainly the United States Post Office faces competition in major markets, and from the Internet, but what has that to

Finally SOME people in DC are trying to get some jobs going. “Senior Senate Democrats” are proposing “a large infrastructure package funded by tax increases” and that is exactly what the country NEEDS. From The Hill last week, Do more on jobs, Dems tell Obama,

Senior Senate Democrats are growing frustrated by what they see as President Obama’s passivity on the economy, and are beginning to discuss a large infrastructure package funded by tax increases.

. . . “I am concerned about the Obama administration’s approach on this,” Harkin said. “It always has been about jobs. I think the administration kind of got snookered talking about the deficit and the debt after the last election.

“The last election was about jobs and the economy, and now we’re in a position where we really do need some economic pump-priming by the federal government,” he said.

Has To Be Done Anyway

The country needs this infrastructure work done anyway. Since the Reagan tax cuts we have been putting off maintenance of our infrastructure. And this is catching up to us.

Experts say $2 trillion of infrastructure work is needed just to catch up. The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) Infrastructure Report Card, says a $2.2 trillion investment is needed to bring the country up to current standards. ASCE says, “Years of delayed maintenance and lack of modernization have left Americans with an outdated and failing infrastructure that cannot meet our needs.”

Imagine where the economy would be today if this work had been done as needed. We would have a well-maintained infrastructure, keeping our businesses competitive in the world, not to mention where we would be with an additional $2 trillion of employment and the resulting savings, homes, kids sent to school… This is a measure of the cost of the Reagan tax cuts and the pullback of public investment it caused.

Another measure is the resulting attitudes. Here we are with millions out of work, and millions of jobs that need doing, and we can’t even get going on doing the needed work! So the continued lack of investment in our public structures will have future costs as well.

“Falling Dramatically Behind”

Recently the Urban Land Institute issued a report on the country’s infrastructure, showing how we are falling behind countries like Brazil, China and India. The Washington Post covered the report last month, in Study: $2 trillion needed for U.S. infrastructure

The United States is falling dramatically behind much of the world in rebuilding and expanding an overloaded and deteriorating transportation network it needs to remain competitive in the global marketplace, according to a new study by the Urban Land Institute.

Burdened with soaring deficits and with long-term transportation plans stalled in Congress, the United States has fallen behind three emerging economic competitors — Brazil, China and India, the institute said.

[. . .] As Congress debates how much should be spent and where to find the money, China has a plan to spend $1 trillion on high-speed rail, highways and other infrastructure in five years. India is nearing the end of a $500 billion investment phase that has seen major highway improvements, and plans to double that amount by 2017. Brazil plans to spend $900 billion on energy and transportation projects by 2014.

According to the report,

… the U.K. has committed Us$326 billion (£200 billion) over the next five years to continue national infrastructure projects focused on rail, energy production, and broadband access, with an emphasis on reducing the nation’s carbon emissions through investments in renewable energy.

France, germany, spain, and Italy continue to build out high-speed rail and freight networks between major cities and extend cross-border transport links …

Australia is working to shore up existing infrastructure while setting national priorities for future investments; expansion of ports, refashioning of rail lines, and relief of urban traffic congestion take precedence.

Canada is expanding its PPP initiatives to address the revamping of aging facilities.

… China is moving ahead with wide-ranging infrastructure programs, including completion of an unprecedented 10,000-mile high-speed rail network by 2020. newly constructed airports, ports, and subway systems in China’s major centers facilitate the country’s growth into the world’s second-largest economy and help it deal with mounting congestion from burgeoning urban populations.

India is working hard to attract more private financing for desperately needed infrastructure to nurture aspirations for global economic leadership, while the United arab emirates and Kuwait continue to use oil wealth to build out transport hubs and seek energy-efficient solutions for future power and water needs.

Brazil is accelerating road, transit, and water projects to accommodate its burgeoning economy and buttress an enhanced standing on the world stage; it does not want to disappoint people visiting for the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 summer olympics.

Public Wants It

Public Opinion Snapshot: Public Backs Infrastructure Investment, from the Center for American Progress, says,

Eighty percent declared themselves in agreement with President Barack Obama’s State of the Union call for a major effort to rebuild and modernize America’s infrastructure in a new Hart Research/Public Opinion Strategies survey for the Rockefeller Foundation.

Last month Rep. Jerry Nadler wrote a pro-infrastructure op-ed for Politico, The necessity of infrastructure cash,

The single greatest challenge is to fund the investments that we so desperately need in the face of a Republican-sponsored hysteria for budget cutting that pays no regard to the consequences. Just last week, for instance, an Urban Land Institute study concluded that we need $2 trillion just to make basic repairs to our critical infrastructure.

[. . .] Every stage of American prosperity and growth has followed federal investment in infrastructure. From Henry Clay’s “American System” to Abraham Lincoln’s “Internal Improvements” and Trans-Continental Railroad to Dwight Eisenhower’s Interstate Highway System, the federal government has financed the nation’s major infrastructure growth and enabled our economic development.

If America is to lead the world economy in the 21st century, it will require a modern infrastructure capable of promoting and sustaining economic growth. And it will be built not by happenstance but only through the leadership and investment of the federal government, as in the past.

If we choose not to make the investments necessary to lead the world, there will be no shortage of countries ready and willing to take our place.

So here we are, stuck, with all this work that needs to be done, and all these people needing work, and we can’t as a country connect the dots and get this going.

This post originally appeared at Campaign for America’s Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture. I am a Fellow with CAF.

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Just ten years ago the country had huge budget surpluses. Then they cut taxes for the rich and dramatically increased military spending. They privatized (i.e. handed to cronies) as much of the government as they could get away with. They deregulated almost everything and stopped enforcing the laws and regulations that remained. They closed 50,000 factories, sending millions of jobs out of the country. This all came to a head, as it had to, and millions more jobs were lost, which exploded the already-huge deficits as unemployment, food stamps, etc. increased while tax revenues declined.

Now there is a deficit of jobs, causing the deficit of budget. At the same time there are millions of jobs that obviously need to be done, maintaining and modernizing our infrastructure, educating our people, moving us away from oil and coal and otherwise improving our health and our lives and out spirits. But these are not the issues being discussed at the table.

Wealthy And Wall Street At The Table

These negotiations going on behind the scenes do not represent the public.

Remember the deficit commission that was headed by a right-wingnut and a board member of a huge Wall Street firm? The two of them came up with a “serious” plan that cut taxes for the rich and cut the things government does for the rest of us.

Then there was a “Gang of 6″ (now 5). Now there is the Biden Group described (see below) as an “Old Boys Club.”

At the table: a bunch of well-paid elites, many possibly even hoping to cash in later with big-money jobs on Wall Street or K Street (lobbying).

Not At The Table

Women are not at the table — especially not single mothers or older women. Working people are not at the table. The poor are not at the table. The retired are not at the table. The unemployed are not at the table. The open, transparent and accountable processes required by democracy are not at the table.

Restoring taxes on the wealthy and cutting the military fixes these problems, but these are not at the table.

Putting people to work maintaining and modernizing our infrastructure would fix these problems. But this is not at the table.

There is a People’s Budget from the Progressive Caucus that addresses these problems, but it is not at the table.

And jobs, infrastructure, the People’s Budget, cuts in the huge military budget, tax increases on the rich are what the public overwhelmingly wants done. But the public is not at the table.

No one at the table is speaking for the American People, for the American Majority that wants taxes restored on the wealthy.

Women And Working People Not At The Table

Where are the women? Where are the working people? Where are the unemployed? Why are they not at the table?

The Older Women’s Economic Security (OWES) Task Force has sent a letter to the President, asking that members of the administration with expertise on women’s issues be added to the White House’s advisory team discussing strategies to reduce deficit spending. From the letter,

“It is simply not enough to send a few privileged men to the table to ‘solve’ the nation’s budget problem,” states the letter from the OWES Task Force. “We welcome the opportunity to bring our voices and expertise to a discussion with you and your advisors, and we request that members of your administration with expertise on women’s issues, such as Secretary Hilda Solis and Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, be added to the White House’s advisory team working on these negotiations.”

… The old boys club meeting has consisted of Republican House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA), U.S. Senators John Kyl (R-AZ), Daniel Inouye (D-HI), Max Baucus (D-MT), Reps. Jim Clyburn (D-SC), and Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), who have convened for the budget negotiations with Vice President Biden, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, Budget Director Jack Lew, and economic adviser Gene Sperling.

Media Gives A Pass

The elite media say that the only “serious” approach to deficits is to cut back on the things We, the People (government) do for each other — budget cuts. Tax increases on the wealthy, taking rates back to where they were when we didn’t have these problems — that’s not “serious.” Investing in modernizing infrastructure, educating our people and efficient energy so our economy is more competitive is not “serious.” Taking on mercantilist trading partners who are grabbing jobs and markets is not “serious.” The People’s Budget especially is not “serious.”

The People And Democracy Demand To Be At The Table

A new round of polls is out, and the public is demanding a change in the DC elite approach. Even more than the last round of polls, these polls show that the public demands to be at the table.

Associated Press-GfK poll,

They’re not buying it. Most Americans say they don’t believe Medicare has to be cut to balance the federal budget, and ditto for Social Security, a new poll shows.

Public Policy Polling conducted a poll sponsored by the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, Democracy For America, MoveOn.org and CREDO Action, which showed the following answer to the idea of cutting Social Security:

In order to reduce the national debt, would you support or oppose cutting spending on Social Security, which is the retirement program for the elderly?

Ohio: 16% support, 80% oppose
Missouri: 17% support, 76% oppose
Montana: 20% support, 76% oppose
Minnesota: 23% support, 72% oppose

A Daily Kos/SEIU State of the Nation Poll asked respondents to name their top issue, from a list of nine. Of course JOBS was #1:

Q: I’m going to name nine issues. Which of these is most important to you right now: education, Social Security, Medicare, jobs, national security, gas prices, taxes, immigration, or the federal budget deficit?
Jobs: 26
Federal budget deficit: 18
Education: 15
Social Security: 13
Gas prices: 10
Medicare: 5
National security: 5
Immigration: 3
Taxes: 3
Something else: 2

Take action: Tell President Obama to put the People’s Budget on the table.

This post originally appeared at Campaign for America’s Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture. I am a Fellow with CAF.

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