One Man’s Efforts to Save the Post Office

By Richard Thayer

Today we’d like to recommend a blogger. His name is Steve Hutkins and his blog is “Save the Post Office” and it reports on planned closures, consolidations and other postal matters. His main objective in setting up the blog is to prevent the Postal Service from closing approximately 4,300 offices that are now on the endangered list.

We learned about it recently from an article about him and his mission in The Washington Post.

Steve lives in Rhinecliff, New York, population 685. Due to its size and location, there’s no mail delivery in his rural community. If you want your mail, you go to the local post office and pick it up.

Although his post office hasn’t been targeted for closing just yet, he’s concerned that it very well could be. As the result of that concern he set out on a one-man crusade this past spring to save the 4,300 post offices that are currently under review by the USPS for possible closure.

In his interview with The Washington Post, Hutkins told the paper, “I live in a very small town with a very small post office. My goal is to save all of these post offices.”

Recent articles on his blog have included these headlines: “The Perfect Storm: How everything is coming together to take the Postal Service apart,” “Don’t touch my junk: The bulk mail industry says hands off our profits,” and “The Shock Doctrine: Why the Postal Service is scaring the hell out of us.”

Normally Hutkins teaches literature at New York University, but because of his recent “obsession” with the Postal Service’s plans for downsizing, he’s taken a leave of absence so he can focus full-time on his blog and his mission.

One of the most popular features of his site is an interactive map that shows the 4,300 post offices that are being considered for extinction.

If you’re interested in keeping abreast of what’s going on with the Postal Service and its antics, we highly recommend “Save the Post Office.”

Check it out.

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Shared Sacrifice? Not So Much

NALC Legislation and Political Action
(This is a crosspost from NALC Activist Alert)

In regard to the recent deficit negotiations in Congress, billionaire businessman Warren Buffet felt left out of the “sacrifice” part.

While working families will be asked to face more difficult times ahead through wide-sweeping budget cuts, Buffet questions a system where he and his super-wealthy friends have been inexplicably spared.

In an op-ed piece for The New York Times, Buffet uses his own tax rate to explain this paradox. While he paid nearly $7 million in taxes last year, his effective tax rate was only 17.4 percent of taxable income–lower than 20 people in his workplace.

The tax system currently employs a 15 percent tax on capital gains, which is where most of the super-wealthy make their income. These individuals often do not even take a salary and instead make most of their millions through investments.

The result is that middle-and lower-class Americans pay higher effective tax rates than their millionaire counterparts due to higher payroll tax rates.

Buffet explains that this setup does not allow the super-wealthy to pay their fair share of taxes, at a time when income inequality continues to rise and tax revenues plummet due to the ongoing recession.

Back in the 1980s and ’90s, when Buffet’s tax rate was more in the middle of the pack, modern-day GOP members believe he would have thrown a fit and refuse to invest. He clearly did not refuse to invest.

Also, from 1980-2000, the country added 40 million new jobs. But everyone knows the story from the past decade: lower tax rates and far lower job creation rates.

Buffet demonstrates the unusual ability among the super wealthy to actually see the bigger picture in terms of sacrificing and contributing to the well-being of the country when times are difficult.

We can only hope Congress will see the light as well.

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