Postal Service OIG Discovers $75 Billion Overpayment, Again

Natural Born Conservative ^ | January 4, 2011 | Larry Walker, Jr.

[aposiopetic]

Anything here?

[ChildOfThe60s]

The late Senator Everett Dirkson is reputed to have said, “A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon it adds up to real money”. Update that to “a hundred billion” here and there.

The numbers have ceased to have any real meaning to the average person. Especially the average liberal. The sky hasn’t fallen, so it’s logical to assume things can go on like this forever.

[muawiyah]

Notice the use of the term "government backed" ~ actually USPS has a Constitutional basis ~ just like Congress or the Presidency or the Courts, or the provision to admit new states.

Do not be fooled by propaganda.

Now, the real issue ~ the EXCESS FUNDS invested by USPS in the federal retirement system should be returned to the employees on whose behalf USPS acted. That can be done by recomputing their retirement annuities to reflect the overpayments.

The money should NOT be given to users or to Congress or to other federal agencies,.

[aposiopetic]

Resistance in such a case makes sense.

Alas, Congress tries to raid fees received from inventors by the Patent Office, too, to support the bailout-du-jour etc.

[preacher]

Have these overpayments to retirement funds been one reason postage rates have been increased?

[jbp1]

I’d disagree, as it appears that what has happened is that the gov’t took too much TAXPAYER $$ and put into the USPS CSRS. That being the case, that money should be used only to pay down the national debt, and the national budget should be reduced by the same amount. Period. Not used to fund a single friggin program.

Congress - worthless bunch of ba$tard$.

However, if it were USPS employee $$, then of course Uncle Sam should give it back to them. However, if this were the case, there would already be about 10,000 John Edwards clones filing class action suits right now.

[dragnet2]

My mail-person is really PO’d...He tells me they want to put tracking devises in all the USPO vehicles, GPS etc, while at the same time his bosses are telling him the USPO has no money for anything....

[muawiyah]

You want to "convert" money that intially came into the hands of the government as POSTAGE into General Revenue Funds.

That violates a couple of legal standards in the Constitution regarding imposts, taxes, duties, etc.

It is fundamentally WRONG to just plain steal.

The money was computed as being needed to pay for postal employee retirements ~ that's where the money should go ~ to postal employee retirements.

IT WAS NEVER TAX MONEY. It should not be wasted on the tom foolish cr*p planned by NancyPelosi and her running dog lackeys. My money is much better off in my pocket than in the foreign bank accounts of corrupt Democrats.

And why are you Leftwingtards doing on a thread dedicated to honesty, integrity and the utility of user fees in purchasing government services. This is ordinarily a hot bed of Ronaldus Magnus' sympathies ~ not a pro-tax bone in our bodies.

[NaturalBornConservative]

“Have these overpayments to retirement funds been one reason postage rates have been increased?”

Yes. And good point. Instead of thinking that they lost $7 billion last year, the USPS would be $68 billion to the good and not need to raise postage. Heck, they could be cutting postage!

[NaturalBornConservative]

preacher
“Have these overpayments to retirement funds been one reason postage rates have been increased?”

“Yes. And good point. Instead of thinking that they lost $7 billion last year, the USPS would be $68 billion to the good and not need to raise postage. Heck, they could be cutting postage!”

*And to make matters worse, the OIG seems to think that the CSRS has the money just sitting there, but he might want to check the government’s 9/30/10 financial statements, Note #24 to be exact. The notes reveal that there is “a $765.6 billion deficit in the Civil Service Retirement and Disability Trust Fund”. So I think that the money is gone now. In effect the Treasury has been milking money out of us through the postal service to cover liabilities and deficits in other parts of the government. What a sham.

United States Government Notes to the Financial Statements for the Years Ended September 30, 2010, and 2009 - http://www.fms.treas.gov/fr/10frusg/10notes.pdf

[muawiyah]

Alas, the $78 billion was collected under the presumption it was needed for employee retirements. It should be retained for that purpose. Today's "users" paying postage are not the same as yesterday's "users" paying postage, but we have essentially the same employees.

I assure you the money is better off in the pockets of the postal retirees than any customer, or certainly Congress.

[dragnet2]

Have these overpayments to retirement funds been one reason postage rates have been increased?

Hmmmm...

[muawiyah]

Postage rates get increased to pay for foreign oil imports.

The "retirements" are worked into the hourly rates ~ BTW, these are not the people you hate so much who are making $129,000 per annum.

One of the reasons so many state and municipal employee retirement programs are going bankrupt is that NO ONE set aside any of the money as planned. Instead they'd let the funds build up and then borrow them to build "necessary public infrastructure".

Here you have a plan where the money has been more than set aside and EVEN FREEPERS want to just steal it and throw it away on government waste.

I think we know where everybody is coming from now ~ and there's no integrity in any of it.

[jbp1]

wow. I’m not looking to start a flame thread with you, as I shy away from discussions with intellectual giants who also have phenomenal diplomatic skills. Your genius and mastery of my position have allowed you to put words in my mouth and then call me a leftwingtard. Good for you.

In my post I said “as it appears”, not “I know that”.
Now, that assumption I made ‘appears’ to be wrong, so okay, I’ll get over it, and you should too.

In my post I continued, supposing another scenario, where I also said, “however, if it were”. This makes it obvious that I’m admitting that I’m not sure how the money was obtained, and was giving my thoughts on how it should be handled for a second assumed scenario.

And given that the USPS budget comes up short quite often, where does THAT difference come from?

This is a forum. People post facts, assumptions and opinions. Please note the difference in the future. Also, note my tagline.

Have a nice day.

PS to the FR moderators: If I have overstepped here I apologize. But I do feel I have just cause to respond somewhat accordingly to muawiyah’s post.

[Mr. Lucky]

Why is it that we're supposed to believe that the pension calculations made by the Inspector General (an employee of the Postal Service) are more accurate than those made by the Office of Personnel Management?

[muawiyah]

You should check out the table of organization to see who the IG works for.

He's not like one of your internal audit boys at the insurance company ~ it's a separate government agency.

[muawiyah]

You are being entirely too vitreolic ~ you may not realize it but once you begin to look at what you are saying from MY point of view you'd understand.

What we need is more empathy, less rhetoric, and jus' hand over your money!

(NOTE: just keeping up with the Obama Regime ~ they got their folks with the do-rags out there already telling me "we jus' gotta' get along together". Sorry, not after somebody tells me I'm the class enemy. All become suspect in that case.)

[Mr. Lucky]

OK, but the Office of Personnel Management is clearly an independent arbiter. Why do we assume that the Postal Service’s Inspector General is more competent to make actuarial determinations than is the Office of Personnel Management?

[muawiyah]

Why? Because in FR OPM is “evil” ~ cops aren’t ~ unless they shoot dogs. Until the Postal IG shoots someone’s dog they are OK.