Former APWU President William Burrus sent the following letter to Rep. Darrell Issa:
Congressman Darrell Issa
Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
2157 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20015-6143
Mr. Chairman,
I am William Burrus, President Emeritus of the American Postal Workers Union, AFL-CIO and I take strong exception to your letter of July 11, 2011 to President Guffey of our union. I no longer speak for the union but as a user of postal services and a continuing member and voter I must expose your allegation that the APWU advertisement is misleading to the American public.
Political messages must be tailored to the time and currently the American public is being exposed to the debate over government spending in the political effort to enact legislation that will govern the nation’s debt limit. In these discussions you and your party have taken an inflexible position that tax subsidies provided to your political supporters should be viewed as “jobs creators” and should be considered off limits for inclusion in a package for future savings. Conversely you choose to characterize the relationship between the federal government and the Postal Service as including “implicit subsidies” as recorded by the Federal Trade Commission.
You have become adept at the use of talking points in support of political positions but this effort to take exception to the assertion of the television ad, that taxpayers do not fund the delivery of mail, fails in its legitimacy. The Postal Service is recognized by law as a federal agency and accordingly is exempt from statutes governing private entities. It is not misleading to maintain that exemption from the obligations cited in your letter do not rise to the level of taxpayer support except in the world of poll driven political statements.
It is also disingenuous for you to compare “several hundred million dollars” of exemptions for a federal agency to the USPS annual budget of 65 billion dollars. If one would include such “special treatment” as taxpayer expense, it would constitute 3/10 of 1% of USPS annual revenues.
President Guffey is correct in pointing out to the American public that the correction to USPS finances is not a request for government financing but relief from Congressional actions requiring the pre-payment of future health care cost. I suggest that if you sincerely want to be absolute in the use of political messages that you begin with an analysis of the specific countries where new jobs have been created from the 2001, 2003 and 2008 tax cuts referred to as the “Bush tax cuts” and compare the results to the APWU ad informing that the Postal Service does not receive government subsidies.
Sincerely,
William Burrus
Burrus Journal
Brian P is another of my dopey Flat Earth, Fake News, Rupert Murdoch loving douchebags!
This is for Brian P. You obviously don’t know what your talking about. Here’s a good example. GE closed its Albuquerque jet engine manufacturing plant and relocated it overseas. GE payed no taxes for 2010 and received a tax break for relocating the plant resulting in a huge refund. Hundreds of American jobs lost. You and I paid more taxes than GE. So’ how does your “greedy government” logic explain this. our corporate tax rate is hurting GE, really? Companies are provided tax incentives to hire workers. If their taxes are so low as they are now {lowest rate in 50 years} the incentive is negligible versus the cost of the new employees so they just keep the money and return it as dividends to stock holders {DJI 6000 point rise in 2 1/2 years} and sell more stock. While wages for middle class have risen .5% over 10 years. Quite the racket.
Issa is nothing more than a cockroach.
Glad to see you in the fight for our future, Mr Burrus. Please dont go away. We need your experience, your insight & your intelligence.
You make Issa look so small, you really do, sir.
The politics displayed by Issa and his cohorts have destoyed the American dream -one company after another-one job after another-eliminated! Americans can no longer own homes and support families because men like Issa have given themselves the power to change lives thru deceit and misinformation. Thet pit workers against workers when, all workers should be united in their stand against these liars. When is having a decent job a sign of excess? When is having health care a sign of excess? Never. It should be our right as Americans. And those that we have voted in office,men like Issa, want to take our rights away because they have allowed businesses and corporate interests (stockholders) to dictate the destruction of decent jobs for all. Anger should be expressed,not at those that have jobs, but at men like Issa that have outsourced jobs at the expense of decent wages for all Americans.
Does Burras realize that those jobs went offshore because we have the 2nd highest Corporate tax rate of any country. Imagine how many jobs would stay in the USA if we didn’t have a 35% price hike from the very beginning, and that is just the final product. Add the 35% additional that every person is paying for each and every part that a company has to buy to make a product. As you can see, the government’s greediness is what is causing these jobs to go overseas. There is zero reason the federal government spends as much money as they do. Stick to the Constitution, if it isn’t in the Constitution, then it can’t be spent. That means zero food stamps, zero for pell grants, zero for welfare. This is something that the states, and not the federal government should be doing.
Thank you Mr. Burrus, I’ve always enjoyed listening to you speak at the national conventions. This guy issa is an idiot, he has no idea whats goes on in the post office and he definitely do not care about postal workers or any work class person. He’s an embarrassment to the congress and the state of California, I hope they vote him out of office and take his puppet ross with him(Florida).
Since the Republican Party is for the rich, I proudly choose to be a Republican. Retrieve yourself from your cesspool of poverty, don’t delegate the power of your life to a welfare state loser party. Maybe you will achieve a better vocabulary, and finally be happy with yourself.
Issa is a great man and good famly values. He supports good American ideels and wants to trickle on us.
President Burrus, your continued devotion to the APWU will never be forgotten. Your infinite wisdom is greatly appreciated and honored. You will go down if not the greatest president APWU ever will have, but definitely one of the greatest, and knowledgeable presidents ever!! You are right on point about ISSA. He is one of the most ignorant congressmen I have ever heard of. He do not care about anyone else economic state but the rich and wealtiest americans. Issa definitely do not care about any Postal worker trying to make a haflway decent living, or any Unionized party. Don’t he and others like him know that if it was not for decent salaries like Union workers, there would not be a middle class. If no decent salaries, there would be not tax money going monthly to Congress paying his high price salary!! California, shame on your state for ever putting someone like him in office!!!
Thank you Mr. Burrus, you are absolutely correct. The tax cuts for the rich were done so they would create jobs, and they DID create MILLIONS of jobs, just not in the United States of America. These jobs went to Mexico, Canada, Japan, China, India, and Europe. Why? Mostly because as is the norm, the Congress just gave money away instead of saying hey you General Electric and Exxon/Mobile, you have to spend this money in the good ole USA! I admit if I am a big business or a multi billionaire, I would go to China too, where 15 dollars a day is a lot of money. Of course, we get what we pay for! Isn’t it amazing, we give companies tax breaks and they take that money and give it to China, or Mexico or one of the other countries? It is no wonder Issa wants to maintain those tax cuts, he can get a little richer.
Mr. Burrus,
I’m always excited and intrigued to hear what you have to say in support of our union and the usps. Please continue to clarify postal business to Darrell Issa and his tea party constituents. Thank You, Sir.
Let’s face it, D’Issa is not the sharpest tool in the shed.
HE IS A (rich) LIAR AND TRAITOR. Just ask the Carriers and Rurals.
Mr. Burrus’ ass-kicking letter needs to be a TV ad all it’s own and it could be and is about all of those “inflexible” S.O.B.’s in Congress trying to erode more American Jobs.
It’s bigger than the P.O. and much bigger than this idiot.
As usual, well said Mr. Burrus….and thanks for taking the time to write the pompous ass, LOL.
Mr Issa obviously has an agenda, and that seems to be one that is not good for the country as a whole, but it seems only to enrich him and his cronies. His posturing is easily seen through, all you have to do is listen for a while and you can figure him out. He is like the phone call you get where as soon as you say hello a computerized voice starts talking with no interaction from you it keeps saying the same old message regardless of what you say back.
Thank You Mr Burrus!
Bill was and is always eloquent.
He eloquently called ISSA a LIAR.
Darrell Issa and ALL OF HIS MINIONS are serial LIARS.
And when they are not OUTRIGHT LYING….THEY CONTINUOUSLY
PRACTICE THE ART OF “OMISSION OF SUBSTANTIAL FACT” to advance
their AGENDA.
The Republican Party….the party of WEALTH FOR THEM and none for you.
Love love love Mr Burrus. We need all the help & support we can get. Downright fraudulent what this man Issa is doing.
Very good Jim…if we open the political closet of subsidies we would find plenty of cases of corporate welfare to go around. Issa is looking to outsource and privatize more jobs to the private sector. I wonder how much money is being put in his pocket!
No,I believe Mr. Burrus means countries.Under George W. over fifty thousand factories closed and those tax cuts funded off shoring of American jobs.In just one example,tax breaks for General Electric resulted in zero federal taxes on ten billion in profits.Two out of every three GE jobs are now offshore.
Jim B.
“…you begin with an analysis of the specific countries where new jobs have been created from the 2001, 2003 and 2008 tax cuts referred to as the “Bush tax cuts” ”
Does he mean “counties” instead of countries? It seems to be senile ramblings in either case.