Sticky Post~WHY does the postal service get a home owners relocation buy out program but not the military?

OK so I saw this article last week, but I had fifty other things going on and didn't get a chance to blog about it.

"At a time when the U.S. Postal Service says it is experiencing a financial crisis, it purchased a $1.2 million home from an employee so he could relocate, a CNN investigation has found."

I am not so ticked off at the amount of money they sunk into this one house, although that does disturb me.

I am sickened that the Postal Service workers, who the only thing they fight is the weather, and some mean dogs, gets a home owners buy out program!

I can promise you that the postal service workers are not ORDERED to leave their homes.

I can promise you that the postal service worker had a choice to stay or to move. They may not have received the promised promotion if they didn't move, but compared to what we are up against, that is nothing.

And we as military families get told that we should be happy living in the slums, drug ridden neighborhoods, because that's all we can afford if we rent a house.

We get told that we should have "known" better than to buy a house, as there is no promises as to how long we will be stationed at one base. Or about the economy.

We get told that it is a part of being in the military and to deal with it.

We get told by people who have no clue that we are provided with military housing and that we should be happy. These ignorant souls do not realize that military housing has gone privatized at most bases, and those housing areas that were not on base originally, that have gone privatized have gone to the drug lords, and slum lords (they will try to tell you otherwise, but the neighborhood's surrounding the supposed "gated areas" are horrible.)

These ignorant souls also do not realize that the base housing that is still "on base" will not provide housing for all of the people stationed at any one base, and many military members simply have to live off base because there is no room for them at the inn.

I ask you again my friends out there in blog land, PLEASE write to your congressmen, senators, President and First Lady, and ask them to PLEASE take this situation seriously!

A letter that you can send to them:

I am deeply concerned about the devastating impact of the current housing market on Military Families and the readiness of our fighting forces. In many cases, Military Families purchase homes when base housing and rentals are unavailable or inadequate. When ordered to move (PCS orders) Military Families must move and are entirely on their own to resolve the housing issues.
By some accounts, the foreclosure rate among Military Families is four times higher than the nation average. The financial impact for individual Military Families should be obvious. They incur debts that may not be paid off for decades and endure even more family separations on top of the extended deployments. In some cases damaged credit may prevent renewal of the security clearances required to do their jobs.
This will undoubtedly affect the readiness of our fighting forces. Despite their commitment to service in our country's defense, highly experienced service men and women will be forced to leave the Military. We have service members in combat zones today while their families are dealing with foreclosure! Clearly this issue has a huge impact on our fighting forces morale.
I urge you to support two initiatives to relieve this unprecedented and unfair financial burden on our Military Families:
-Immediate tax credits for Military Families suffering financial loss when unable to sell their homes in a down market.
-Parity in Home Buying benefits for career designated Military Members similar to that enjoyed by employees of other Federal Agencies to include; settlement cost reimbursement and a guaranteed buy out when unable to sell in a down market. Especially given the fact that last week on the news they discussed a postal workers home that the government bought out at over $1,000,000! http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/03/05/postal.service.relocation/index.html Tell me how this is acceptable! This postal worker could not have been ORDERED to move positions, ORDERED to go overseas to fight for our freedom, ORDERED into a new job. I am sure this person could have chosen to stay where they were, in the position they were in, with no ill effects. However service men and women have no such luck.
I firmly believe there are substantial cost offsets in recruiting, training, and retention that would make such a program cost-effective. More importantly, it is simply the right thing to do! Military Families should not be denied the American Dream that they defend. Please act today!

This letter and more can be found at http://www.moresam.net/

Please join me in writing to everyone that you can think of to correct this situation!