Hatunen wrote:
>Merritt Mullen wrote:
>>"Adam H. Kerman" wrote:
>>>The post office is NOT a public corporation or any kind of corporation.
>>>It's a government agency. Till the Nixon administration, it was a
>>>cabinet-level executive department.
>>It is a government agency in the common meaning of the word, but it is
>>legally defined as "an independent establishment of the executive branch."
>>The law (39 U.S.C, sec. 201) says:
>>"There is established, as an independent establishment of the executive
>>branch of the Government of the United States, the United States Postal
>>Service."
>>I know, picky, picky.
>More than "picky, picky". As I said, "agency" has a specific
>legal meaning that does not apply to independent units such as
>the USPS or the Federal Reserve.
If you're talking about things like civil service pay grades, the postal
service isn't subject to that (thanks to much better representation by
postal unions than civil service unions years ago). There's some
flexibility in management pay as well. There's independent purchasing
and sometimes independent contruction of major facilities, assuming the
post office isn't in a court house or a Roosevelt-era building.
Most of the postal budget isn't subject to annual appropriation from
Congress.
But otherwise, the post office is subject to any other law that any
other federal executive agency is subject to, like preferences for
military veterans, participation in the Thrift Savings Plan.
>>As you say it not any kind of corporation, such as Amtrak is, and its
>>employees are government employees paid by the Treasury Department.
>>Amtrak employees are not government employees and they are paid by the
>>corporation, not by the Treasury.
>Do the proceeds from postage sales go into Treasury, and are they
>earmarked somehow for wages?
Gosh, I can't remember now. I'll have to ask.
I do know that, depending on how big they want to pretend the federal
deficit is in any particular year, sometimes the post office is on
budget, and sometimes it's not. |