Closing Post Offices Hurts Communities & Their Economies

Later this year, 3,830 postal offices will be closed to cut U.S. Postal Service spending by $295 million annually from its budget of $70 billion.  The Postal Service has 32,000 offices and most of the locations to be closed will be those in rural communities.  People living there experience more poverty on average than other Americans.  These small towns usually do not have Broadband Internet and their economies are more dependent on post offices than big cities are.  Shipping rates for UPS and FedEx are higher for those in rural communities.  People in these communities often have to drive on poorly maintained roads to find the nearest post office to send letters, pay bills, receive newspapers, and even file their tax returns.  This affects every business operating in a small town and these communities have a harder time attracting new business.  In other words, Congress does not care that it is screwing over rural communities to cut very little from the Budget Deficit.  Raising taxes on the wealthy, instead, would provide more than enough cash to save these offices, as well as rural communities' economies.  This would boost the national economic growth as the private sector would benefit from greater ease of movement of goods and information.  This important government function of making sure everyone can get things sent to their destinations in a timely way is often taken for granted.  It may be difficult to occupy post offices, but Occupy protesters in big cities protest for them, too.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/17/us-usa-usps-idUSTRE81D0M620120217

Fox News: Majority of Americans (for 1/15/12)

According to a Fox News poll as of December 2011, 51 percent of American voters think President Obama has done a poor job in his first three years in office. But, Democrats have an 82%/11% approve-to-disapproval rating of Obama's overall performance across the entire term to date. Poll participants stated at a 94% rate that the struggling economy needs improvement or growth. But, Obama still stands a good shot at re-election due to GOP's failure to produce a strong candidate who would reform the tax code and clean up the corruption in the banking system. http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/12/09/fox-news-poll-disapproval-president-obama-is-up/

The Top 1% Cares Most About Deficits, Wants Private-Sector Solutions (for 12/18/11)

Of America's Wealthiest 1%, about 32% thought the U.S. Budget Deficit and Debt is the U.S.'s biggest problem and only 11% thought economic growth/jobs was. Nearly half of all Americans think the economy and jobs are the biggest problem, and only 5% thought the Debt was. The wealthiest 1% often prefer private sector solutions such as philanthropy to the economic problems. But, they often do not engage in more charitable activity, even if they do not trust government. http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/14/the-politics-of-the-1-percent/?hp