Posted on 01/11/2011 5:13:33 PM PST by NaturalBornConservative
Will Obamacare Go Up In Flames Too?
- By: Larry Walker, Jr. -
"You've got a lot of private companies who do very well competing against the government -- UPS and FedEx are doing a lot better than the Post Office." ~ Barack Obama (Aug. 2009)
According to an article posted on federalnewsradio.com, on June 28, 2010, the United States Postal Service, Office of Inspector General (OIG) discovered that the Postal Service had made a $75 billion overpayment to the Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS). However, the same problem had already been reported by the OIG back in April of 2004. Apparently nothing was done to correct the problem in 2004, and it doesn’t appear that anything has been done about it to date. (If this has since been resolved, please comment below, and point me to your reference.) Following is an excerpt from the aforementioned article:
In what could be the best game of Monopoly™ ever, Postmaster General John Potter may have just drawn a card that reads "Inspector General finds error in your favor. Collect $75 billion dollars."
The Inspector General for USPS took a closer look at the Civil Service Retirement System and found massive overpayments dating back decades.
Michael Thompson, Director of Capital Investments for the Postal Service Office of Inspector General, explained for Federal News Radio, "the Postal Service, since 1972, has overfunded by $75 billion its share of civil service retirement and the reason for that is because the methodology that's used is not comparable to the methodologies that's used for all the other federal retirement funds."
Thompson said the Office of Personnel Management, in deciding how much the Postal Service should pay into the CSRS, is currently using a different method developed in 1974. They've said they aren't going to change unless Congress tells them to, according to Thomson.
"The money is sitting in the civil service retirement fund. It's not as though the money is not there. It is there. It's just that the Postal Service has continually paid more than it should have paid."
All it would take, according to Thompson, is for either the OPM to make the change or for Congress to legislate it. That might seem simple enough, but with so much money involved, no one's getting off the dime, literally.
http://www.federalnewsradio.com/index.php?nid=15&sid=1990598#
The article mentioned above is in line with a memo issued by the OIG on June 18, 2010 (excerpt below). I’m just wondering if anyone has “gotten off the dime” as of yet? I mean I know it’s only $75 billion, but one has to wonder just how many unresolved $75 billion overpayments are floating around Washington D.C., with its $14 trillion in debt and all. Where was it that the buck was supposed to stop again?
June 18, 2010
JOSEPH CORBETT CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER & EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT
SUBJECT: Management Advisory Report – Civil Service Retirement System Overpayment by the Postal Service (Report Number CI-MA-10-001)
This report presents the results of our review of the Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS) Overpayment by the U.S. Postal Service (Project Number 10YO036CI000). This report discusses the $75 billion CSRS overpayment by the Postal Service in fiscal years (FY) 1972 through 2009. The objective of this review was to assess the facts concerning this overpayment and identify any possible solution(s) to correct the overpayment to the benefit of the Postal Service. This review addresses financial risk.
Now if you look back through the records of the OIG, you will discover that a similar memo was issued back in April of 2004 (excerpt below). The 2004 memo stated that the Postal Service was making overpayments to the CSRS, and implied that the problem had been corrected. In fact, the memo states that, “Had the overpayments continued, the Postal Service would have overpaid its obligation by over $100 billion.” Well, apparently the problem wasn’t resolved, because a little over six years later the Postal Service had in fact, overpaid the CSRS by $75 billion. I wonder what happened to the other $25 billion!
April 9, 2004
MEMORANDUM FOR JOHN E. POTTER, POSTMASTER GENERAL, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER
FROM: /s/ (Scott Wilson for) David C. Williams, Inspector General
SUBJECT: Postal Service’s Funding of the Civil Service Retirement System (Product Number FT-OT-04-002)
This memorandum presents our opinion on the issues surrounding the Postal Service’s funding of the Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS) (Project Number 03XD009FT005). The objective was to analyze the outstanding issues pertaining to the Postal Civil Service Retirement System Funding Reform Act of 2003 (Public Law 108-18) and to provide our perspective on how the legislation affects the Postal Service and its stakeholders. We have included the differing viewpoints and positions that have been generated by affected groups, including the Department of the Treasury (Treasury), the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), the General Accounting Office (GAO), the Postal Rate Commission, the President’s Commission on the United States Postal Service (the President’s Commission), mailers, competitors, and the Postal Service.
GAO discovered that the Postal Service’s amortized payments to OPM for its CSRS liability were too large. Had the overpayments continued, the Postal Service would have overpaid its obligation by over $100 billion.
It looks like the federal government is just bleeding money on all fronts. Where government backed entities, like the Postal Service, should be turning a profit, instead we find, as the Washington Examiner reported in April of 2010, that “without serious reform [the Postal Service] was set to lose $7 billion in 2010 and $238 billion over the next 10 years...” Perhaps it’s time to end the era of government-sponsored, government-owned, and government-backed entities? One has to wonder, at this point, just exactly what they are backed by - an unlimited ability to incur debt? The time to repeal Obamacare is now. The time to cap the debt ceiling is now. Enough is enough.
Photo Credit: KRTV.com
Other References: Will Obama create the Post Office of health care?
Anything here?
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.
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,.
Alas, Congress tries to raid fees received from inventors by the Patent Office, too, to support the bailout-du-jour etc.
Have these overpayments to retirement funds been one reason postage rates have been increased?
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.
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....
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.
“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!
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
I assure you the money is better off in the pockets of the postal retirees than any customer, or certainly Congress.
Hmmmm...
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.
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.
He's not like one of your internal audit boys at the insurance company ~ it's a separate government agency.
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.)
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?
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.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.