MSNBC "The Ed Show" - Transcript: Sen. Bernie Sanders on the US Postal Service
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Joining me now is Senator Sanders of Vermont. Senator, good to have you with us. I`m sorry I didn`t pick the Vermont beer that`s up there. But at least I have the Good Union stuff here, Miller Lite. OK.
Is the beer delivery and some other things a way that could really turn around the Postal Service? What are you proposing?
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I), VERMONT: Ed, absolutely. The Post Office today is extraordinarily restricted in the kind of services and products that it can provide. If you go into a Post Office and you say to the
clerk, can you notarize this letter for me, Post Office clerk says it`s against the law; can`t do it.
Can I get ten copies of my letter? Sorry, can`t do that. Can I get a fishing license, Hunting license? Can`t do that.
If I want at Christmas time, can you wrap my package, put some Christmas wrapping on it, can`t do that. All over Europe what Post Offices are doing is significantly diversifying. They are getting involved in e-
telecommunications and they`re beginning to make some revenue.
So we`ve got to do a couple things. Short term, as you indicated, we have to relieve the Post Office of this horrendously onerous responsibility of coming up with 5.5 billion dollars every single year. No other
institution in government, local, state, federal or private agency, private corporation, has to do that.
Second of all, the Postal Service, everybody agrees, has overpaid about 13 billion dollars into various retirement programs. That will give us short term breathing space in order to get a new business model out
there, which allows the Post Office to get involved in a much more entrepreneurial effort, and begin to raise the revenue it needs to be self-sufficient.
SCHULTZ: Now all of the things that have been brought up about e-mail and the way society changes, goods and services and what not, I understand all that. But had the Republicans not done this pre-funding of 75 years in a 10 year window, they wouldn`t have anywhere near the financial problems they have right now, correct?
SANDERS: Absolutely. And here`s the point, Ed. That fund now has 44 billion dollars. What the inspector general of the Post Office has just told us the other day, if the Post Office does not put another nickel into
that fund, it accumulates four percent interest. In 21 years, that fund is fully funded, stronger than any similar fund in the United States of America.
So we should use that 5.5 billion in order to stabilize the Post Office today.
SCHULTZ: How are you going to get the private sector to go to rural America? How are you going to get the private sector to go help small businesses? I mean, in the long run, this is really a real thorn in the
side of American business, I think.
SANDERS: You`re absolutely right, Ed. Look, this is what we`re talking about: you`re talking about 230,000 jobs being lost in the Postal Service in the middle of recession. Postal Service is responsible for
millions of other jobs, in the private sector, businesses who use the mail, have to use the mail, packages every single day.
We`re talking about losing 3,700 Post Offices, many of them rural. We`re talking about, if these guys get their way, of slowing down mail delivery, so that instead of one day delivery, it may be two, it may be
three. Instead of three, it may be five.
If you do that, in my view, and the view of many experts, you`re talking about a death spiral, the end of the Postal Service as we know it.
(CROSS TALK)
SCHULTZ: What I find so amazing about this politically is that there are a lot of Republican legislators from rural America. When they go home, aren`t they going to get an earful? What happened to my Post Office? Did you really have to do that? Then they say well, the union people and they`re just making too much money and they can`t make any money. Wrong.
The Republicans in the lame duck session of the Congress passed a law and put them in an untenable position financially that has caused all of this. You`re coming back with a business plan that wants to diversify the services of the Post Office to make them more competitive. That is what they`re doing in other countries.
But, of course, we have to do the American way. We have to cut jobs and move forward. Are you going to get any bipartisan support on this?
SANDERS: I believe we will. We`re picking up a whole lot of Democratic support. There`s a bill out there, Lieberman/Carper bill, has some good aspects to it. We have to strengthen it. I have at least 20, 25
senators, Democrats who want to see it strengthened. I think there a number of Republicans, just for the reason that you gave.
When senators go home and they go to rural areas, people understand that a Post Office is not just a Post Office. It`s an integral part of what a small community is. They don`t want to lose those Post Offices.
SCHULTZ: Yes. Senator Bernie Sanders, great to have you with us. Thank you for sticking up for what is right in this country, no doubt about it.
Sean Hannity has some pretty wild claims about the death of Osama bin Laden, the number one terrorist in the world. I`ll explain the truth to Sean with my tape, next. Stay tuned.
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