Sen. Bernie Sanders, a self-professed socialist from Vermont, spoke with MSNBC’s Ed Schultz about his effort to reform the U.S. Postal Service, and complained about the myriad government regulations that impose a ‘horrendously onerous’ on the public entity.
SCHULTZ: Joining me now is Sen. Sanders of Vermont. Good to have you with us. I’m sorry I didn’t pick the Vermont beer that’s up up there, but at least I have the good union stuff here, Miller Lite. Is the beer delivery and some other things a way that could really turn around the Postal Service? What are you proposing?
SANDERS: Ed, absolutely. The post office today is extraordinarily restricted in the kind of services and products that it can provide. If you go in 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 with Christmas wrapping?" Can’t do that. All over Europe with post offices are doing is significantly diversifying, they are getting involved in e-telecommunications and they’re beginning to make some revenue. We’ve got to do a couple things. Short term as you’ve indicated, we have to relieve the post office of this horrendously onerous responsibility of coming up with $5.5 billion every single year. No other institution, in local, state, federal, or private agency, has to do that.