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>> good afternoon. my name is karlyn bowman nma senior fellow here at aei and i would like to welcome all of you here tonight and our first snow storm at this event and also i c-span not yet to tonight's bradley lecture. this is our first bradley lecture at 2012 and i think it's fitting that it has a political

theme. but this is the 23rd season of aei redly lectures and they have been supported generously by the hair eland bradley foundation. before introducing sean, i'd like to tell you that once bradley lecture that will be given on february 6 iaea's own charles murray. it will be one of the first public lectures on his new book titled coming apart: the state of white america, 1960 to 2010. it is a special pleasure for me to welcome sean trende to aei. many of. many of you know sean is shawn is the senior elections analyst for real clear politics. he earned his masters in political science and also jurist doctorate from duke and holds a bachelor's degree in political science and history from yale university. we had pei have a special connection to sean. he for he went to duke in 1997 in 1898, he was an aei research

assistant, working for allan meltzer and his monumental history of the government reserve. while shauna said pei, we considered him an honorary member of aei's political corridor and his passion for politics, political history with credit evident at that early point. we are pleased to help him launch his new book, the last majority 2008 and 2010 in america's political future at this very week for paul craig mcmillan. copies available for sale in the lobby and also at amazon. in december, gallup asked people which two statements describe their campaign. the first thing that was, i can't wait for the campaign to begin and the other was, i can't wait for the campaign to end. 70% nationally said they couldn't wait for it to end. it is an amusing finding, but i think it points to a larger truth. although we are interested in who is ahead and they want more than the latest polls and the

prognostications from the pundit. sean's book provides that by inviting us to think about the larger sweep of american politics and how the 2012 election fits into that history. some excel political majorities have made them like they are unlikely to be permanent. but i let him tell you about it. sean will speak for 45 minutes and then take your question amateur into a reception out that. sean. i have not [applause] >> hello, my name is sean trende. missing elections analyst for realclearpolitics.com and yes that is my real last name. i say that because not a month goes by that i don't get an e-mail from someone who thinks that it's a little too cute for someone who analyzes political trends has the last name trende.

i will belabor this point, but i just love this story. someone pointed out to me that my title is senior elections analyst is an acronym for my first name and suggested to me that i was just a monogamous people writing for real clear politics. it never occurred to me and i was such a record events. it was a bit of an existential crisis, like maybe he really do live inside the matrix. after reassuring myself i am rail, i try to convince them that he was just me and could not be five or six people appear to be restricted begin by thanking karlyn for the kind introduction and the opportunity to talk about my book, the last majority by the government's up for grabs and who will take it. it is truly an honor and privilege to be back here today. the staffers here today to argue in this outside and like to reiterate what a special place the american enterprise institute really is. speaking of course of the adams morgan on afternoons playing

softball. but seriously, things you learn at american enterprise institute pop-up to write your life and strange indeed have kind of provided the inspiration for my entire way of looking at politics than for this book. it was here, for example that i first learned from my mentor, duck or meltzer, but the work of a college of his named keith poole and developing a method of the ideology members of congress. my obsession with them not to turn turnout would be my master thesis committee does on blockbuster hit, the making of an ideological court application of techniques and supreme court ideology from 1901 to 1945. if you suffer from insomnia i'll send it to them that will do the trick with a masters degree soccer out of an opportunity that was supported by aei. after thumbing through an almanac of american politics in the aei library one day, this was another day in the aei library one day, this was another day in the aei library one day, this was another day in

the aei library one day, this was another day makeup, and became convinced the gop was on track to become the first party that didn't hold the president need to lose seats a midterm election in 1934. ask are unaffected to a friday form an issue, which is an opportunity for us doctors to present other staffers and scholars and she obliged. indies need to seek a masters degree along with the lottery for my career. as in every congressional elections saved as in 1997 since the civil war the president's party's last midterm elections. put up a have labeled this the rule, the rule of midterm loss, broken only in a highly unusual year of 1934. lead over this concept of midterm loss is another idea and this is the concept of the safety or hitch, or is highly to collect from the 60 minutes.

it's a simple enough concept. every sixth year the president's term tends to be an especially bad midterm election. 1938 come the sixth year at the roosevelt presidency, 81 and a republican case. 1946, the sixth year of the 76 years -- to use a duracell presidency republicans gained 55. in 1958, the six-year eisenhower and 49 democratic seats, 1966 and 47 republican seats. a pretty good trend. this is the problem that's endemic to political science. it overlooks the simple fact that most of these election losses resulted not because they heard the sixth year as such, but because they occurred in years for parties suffer from particular contingencies. in 1938 were emerging from that horrific obsession the roosevelt administration in overreached the packing scheme in the third new deal. in 1946 her struggling to deal

with the wage and price controls. in 1958, we were emerging from a bad recession. 1956 the vietnam war was living to increase salient in the democrat had overreached with the great society. and in 1974 of course we had the debacle of the watergate era also a very bad recession. in other words, these parties just ran into some horrible luck in six-year presidential elections. in 1998, none of that was true. there was a scandal obviously, the bill clinton's popularity wasn't suffering from it. the economy was going gangbusters and he actually reigned in his agenda for what was a very aggressive agenda in the first two years. as i touch myself, well, it's a contingencies had drifted midterm loss in the past or present them in 1998, then the experience we the experience we have in this earlier six-year elections would not be present

in 1998. and this experience helps to solidify me thinking about political medication in general and emphasized the difficulty of doing projections based on present events. it brings to mind the famous prime minister harold dylan when he was asked by journalists but could possibly keep up with government? he simply replied, events, events. what mcmillan had picked up on this something that's largely eluded our political class with its incessant focus on realignments and emerging majorities of both republican and democratic persuasion. political science teachers and this is the first month of most political science election classes. the elections moving 32 year appetites. it's fleshed out by the great and i'm not being facetious. he is great, walter dean burnham. we have your site 1800, 1828, 1860, 1896, 1932 and then things start to kind of fall apart.

but i miss 28 to 36 year cycle where it seems like a different political party becomes the majority party in this country. and i think this concept of permanent alignment and realignment has driven a lot of the conversation and discussion of the 2008 and 2010 elections erroneously. i'll get to that in a second, but i have just one quick thing to say about this are nice concept. it is my view at the end of the day that our politics are much more developed independent and short-term events, contingencies than they are in any long lasting coalition are realigned. while parties may seem to put together long-lasting majorities by a time when he three, four come even five elections in a row, that's really not that unusual. the outset talking neither side has her five or i was one of 16. with 55 presidential elections under her belt, a simple chance we shouldn't be surprised to see

more than a few runs for a party under her belt and indeed we do have a few examples. not many, but a few winning 45 elections in a row. so this idea that elections are largely due to short-term events is what underlies a lot of the electorate today. in my book i take things back to the 1920s to show political alignments, gone much by quickly than people appreciate what a great world chance plays in the elections. i could talk for three or four hours about this, but we don't have three or four hours. i love this stuff. but today a focus on what i think is the most salient and what people want to hear about. the 2008, 2010 elections and what this means for 2012. i will say my discussion of 2012 when i speak will be in the big picture. i anticipate a large number of questions from q&a will focus on specifics for 2012, so i'm going to have a generalized view of things and allow people to ask whatever specifics are

interested in about 2012 or two scored two and come, who'll be first in iowa, new hampshire, south carolina, general election we get to those questions. for now there's three questions that i would like to answer. what exactly happened in 2008? how did things fall apart so quickly for the obama administration? and what does this mean for the future? not to understand where we were in the two in election we have to take a trip in the way that. you may recall opponents spoke of an historic victory, one that would transfer in the's policies. we can start with one barack obama the second, who spoke to transforming the nation's politics, and then a narrative history of wiping out politics of the past 30 years. now i have no evidence for this, but i don't think a 30 year references accident. i view obama and his presidents are keenly aware of the city of of thirty-year cycles. he's after on all an extremely educated man.

believe reagan had relented country in 1980 as many suggest that we redo. this is after all the central thesis of a famous book that was another two or three biblical books of the net roots in the early 2000 commend the emerging democratic majority by john jude and roy shaw. that look true directly and realignment and suggested at some point in the 2002 as he flipped from republican dominance to democratic dominance. i think obama and his advisers believe they have captured this. having won in 2008, 20 years after president reagan, he was destined to a fixed-rate major changes in our politics. this is what help drive that majority to its doom. as a site i should note in the book i'm not just picking a president obama. i'm sure he's relieved to know that, but the same idea took the bush administration as well. everyone remembers after the 2004 election, karl rove

speaking famously of its title, william mckinley and mark hanna and how they put together a supposedly permanent majority in 1896. he believed he had accomplished a similar majority in 2004 and i think that helped drive some of the bad choices politically speaking of the bush administration and its second term. again, i took effect at the 1920s is something that happens again and again in our country says terry. the last majority i discuss in the book is any number of less majorities. some have come and gone in our political scenes. some successful. the lesser for cycles. some like carter's win in 1976 and kennedy in 1960, coolidge in 1924 have only lasted one cycle before replaced by something else. coolidge was replaced another successful republican majority that only lasted one cycle. it wasn't just obama. in the republic celebrated the

vindication of the emerging democratic majority thesis. we can go on and on. harold meyerson exhorted the president-elect to bring on the new deal while paul krugman said it all the title of his postelection column, franklin delano obama. by all-time favorite has to be this "newsweek" cover. [laughter] as rick perry might say, whoops. things didn't turn out this way. the easy answer to why that's the case is obama overspent. americans turned against the health care bill in the tea partiers brought about a resurgent american right that helped to build his congressional majority. although this played a role to be sure. but the more fundamental question, if obama had really assembled an fdr like coalition time he should've been able to overcome these forces. after all, you will recall or maybe you want an fdr's presidency, democratic nominees

from 192819241928 had all joined together to oppose his presidency but in 1834 midterms. a huge backlash among the democratic party elite and a lot of republicans and it did no good because the coalition he dissembled in 1932 was a strong one and this method of governing in 1932 from 1936 please the majority of the country. obama didn't have a much shorter like this. iraq is, when in 2008, contrary to conventional wisdom, with nothing more than a narrower but deeper version of bill clinton's coalition from the 1990s. what bill clinton had done was take what had become a democratic piece of minorities, liberals and union members and and a bracelet should ascend to scherrer referred to as progressive centrism. use this new democratic ideology if you will to grab suburbanites

onto the democratic majority and sure of democratic strength among jacksonians in the heartland of the country. these latter voters were white southerners were scotch irish descent who is largely stuck with democratic party's to the 1960s and 1970s. they didn't vote for richard nixon in 1970 or george wallace in 1968. they voted for hubert humphrey. most successors of the democratic to humphrey did relatively well, these jacksonian voters, at least for southerners. if you look at a map of the county baconian mapping areas in eastern kentucky comedy central tennessee, west virginia, even across arkansas and into northern texascommittee's work areas of unusually strong democratic strength among whites in the south, even after the democratic party and flipped to become civil rights in the 1960s. obama change this coalition do not necessarily for the better.

take a look at the maps. what i have done here is taken basically states that were basically tied in 1996 or 2008. and as a republican gets to a point coming becomes a little bit better, and other reflate georgia in 2008, which is barely won by mccain is way better than mccain does a little bit better gets darker and darker with the democrats. you will notice that the blue states in 2008 look a lot like the blue states in 1996. why is this? because her 1996 to 2008, only three states moved more than five points with the democrats. vermont, nevada and barack obama's home state of hawaii. where is the change? the changes right in the middle of the map, just a fast talking

about a jacksonians jacksonians. west virginia, kentucky, tennessee, arkansas, oklahoma and the changes in alabama and louisiana actually come most in the northern charity stays are the most jacksonian. as i sees them as more than five points away from the democrats are in 1996 until 2008. obama didn't vote the democratic coalition in two in 2008. he merited. bill clinton carried by as much as 45 points in eastern kentucky and the republican in 2008. son for the first time since the new deal. what barack obama produced in 2008 was a narrower, deeper version of clinton's 96 coalition. what i mean by deeper versions of clinton's were the groups that bill clinton brought into the democratic party, suburbanites. in other words, fairfax county. that area became bluer peer barack obama had a huge turnout among minority voters, but that

wasn't an expansion of the democratic coalition. i was doing better in areas that had also voted for bill clinton. to get a better idea of this, this is the west south central and east south central regions of the united states. counties carried by democrats in 1996, 2004 and 2008. you see what i'm talking about. eastern kentucky 1996 as the democratic. you have the central tennessee, northern alabama, going across into arkansas and obviously bill clinton did well, but even at the dixie region of eastern oklahoma and across north texas, democrats manage to continue to win in 1996. the map becomes a whole lot better by 2004 and then becomes even rather in 2008. almost every county in because republican in 2008. what makes us all the more remarkable is than 2008, barack obama is running five points

ahead of where john kerry ran in 2004. the country was shifting bluer as a whole is the series of the country were continuing to abandon the democratic party. obama was enabled to build the coalition that enable democrats to remain competitive in the states, even in extremely favorable environment for the democrats. in this region the democratic coalition is now significantly. to engage in a little with obvious foreshadowing, democratic senators held from the states. after excluding minority majority districts, 15 democratic congress contained in the state. democrats controlled out the governorships in 11 of the 16 state houses. so with the trend we begin to see if the national level of the states finally been made with democratic party filter down to congressional and state level that foreshadowed the debacle of the democrats.

there's a positive side to the ledger. obama rainbow against minority voters and suburbanites, but the overall result was a wash. obama actually ran slightly behind clinton's 1996 vote. by the way when i talk about 1996, thanks voting the vote evenly. at least the barack obama's percentage is higher than bill clinton, but exit polls showed that ross perot was point about evenly to split the vote and have you come up with clinton running a little bit out of obama. this shows up if we look at the area to two thirds in a brief. even if we begin measuring from the beginning of june when obama clinches the nomination come to his league minus four points. for most of the campaign obama found himself unable to top 50% and wasn't until october 7 in the middle of the financial clout 31st of the 50% mark in the rcp average.

mccain has successfully drilled the drilling issue during the summer and used that to narrow his deficit with obama after the election david axelrod admitted the one thing they did poorly in the campaign is handling the energy issue in the summer. now, this was one of the major side effects of the financial collapse that it wrote the price of capsule ain't significantly by election day and took away the main issue that john mccain had set himself up to run on in the fall. this was the issue that was the reason he picked therapy limits his running mate because alaska has a lot of oil. and he was gone on september 15. on september 15, did they barack obama finally begins to substantially pull ahead of john mccain. i'm not taking about the post convention because everyone knows john mccain was that of

barack obama after the conventions. in the first day of the democratic convention, john mccain was tied with president -- now president obama in the polls. what i'm trying to reiterate here is not to take anything away from president obama. a win is a win is a successful when, but it wasn't this revolutionary when the commentators are falling over themselves to declare and i believe the obama admin is ration believed it had achieved. so now that we understand the nature of obama's victory that it did not represent a change in american politics, but rather is due to certain contingencies that came along in a narrow coalition, 2010 becomes hard to explain. a narrow coalition is ready for its problems. i'll use a simple analogy. as the u2 groups in the

coalition started with both approving of you have 100%. over the course of your first term, one of the groups continues to love you, but when groups follows down to 0%. you are 50% which is a great, but better than if you only had one group or coalition and you're all the way down to 0%. when you have a narrow coalition, you don't have as much room for error among groups and by excluding jacksonians from the democratic coalition, democrats were in a situation for any loss among working-class whites, suburbanites, latino voters would be absolutely disastrous for their presidential coalition. in a congressional election in particular, a narrow deep coalition is very, very bad, especially democrats who were to start out with though concentrated minority, majority districts in urban areas. once an office of him as politics quickly became defined in the minds of the american

voters. on february 17, 2009, defend the american recovery and reinvestment act better known as the stimulus, providing about $800 billion in spending. the public supported it, but the support was heavily democratic, something we see again and again and the approval rating. they hold up reasonably well, but concentrated among democratic voters. only 20% of republicans and 56% support the law. a few days later the approval rating to below 60% for the first time to support among independents trickle down 54%. by june he had fallen to the 50s and while the economy was taken to london, it wasn't a major issue. americans approved of his job approval on the economy in june by a 55% to 42% margin in ballots. were they disapproved of him and what the president had been the most aggressive than he does promise to spending. the government decision to loan

money to general motors and chrysler in exchange for government sharon to come to was highly unpopular. majorities approved of this move in every region, including the auto producing midwest. at controlling federal spending, 45% of americans approved of the president's performance while 51% already a majority disapprove. the only other issue with the president was upside down was handling of the federal budget deficit, 46% approve, 40% disapproved. even at a time where americans still approve of the job he was doing on the economy, it was spending that was fairly untrue jadedness approval downward. share the country a of self-described conservatives should specifically significant uptick to 40% for the first time since the 1990s, plurality viewed the democrats too liberal. this is critical because what it meant was that bill clinton's rebranding of the democrats,

party of fiscal responsibility and the progressive centrism that judith adzharia-based immaturity theory on had taken a major hit in the eyes of the american public. by mid-july the president's approval rating in the rtp average was up 50%. once again, the leading issue according to gallup was the economy. 24% of americans claim they disapprove of obama's job performance because he was spending too much on another 15% cited leading the nation toward socialism such government take over such bailouts. the notions that the economic stimulus and wasn't working came in to a far third-place at 10%. by november, democrats were in serious trouble. the number who agreed the government was trying to do too much at stake to 57%. the highest number since the 1990s. this was not supposed to happen. this was supposed the resurgence of american faith in the government to fix things.

six months later, americans are saying 57% the government was doing too much. what this resulted in with the two dozen and elections he began to the clinton coalition come completely unglued and new jersey, which is largely suburban state that it gone overwhelmingly for george h. debbie bush in 1988 and quickly switched in 1992 and 1996 as the northern suburbs to democrats, becoming a democratic state. he moved back in ballots and chris christie by four points, by far the most conservative governor and not state that i can because quite frankly. in virginia, we saw bobby donnell win with 59% of the vote. the second highest number since the founding of the modern virginia republican party in the 1950s. i don't really count what we had before the. it wasn't a functioning party in any sense of the term.

what happened in virginia was critical portions of the clinton coalition that had been brought on board due to president clinton's progressive centrism if you will love it. the virginia suburbs had to go in heavily democratic went that. but donnell. the suburbs overall and did well in fairfax county, which had been subpoenaed towards democratic over a series of elections. the biggest changes came in western virginia. jacksonians in western virginia is cool mining country. it's mountainous. the counties voted for democrats in every presidential election since 1972 going back to win the uaw organize the 1920s. he didn't vote for barack obama this time. these are fairly underpopulated counties but when you add the method comes with two episodes. this is about maternal match put together 59% of the though, a tremendous total in a swing state. of course, in 2010, we had a bit

of a shelter in massachusetts. but even now when, scott round win came in critical areas. the liberal areas that the state western berkshires went for martha coakley just as strongly as they have for barack obama. it was the white working class areas and there is an island state. it swung towards scott brown and also the suburbs around the loop around boston. these are the areas that's one most heavily toward scott brown. these are the areas bill clinton at reinvigorated faith in the democratic party. in november 2010, clinton coalition of silly fell apart. democrats lost 66 house seats for picking up seats for republicans. we're showing for any party in the house election since 1948. or showing any party midterm elections 1938. we can see the types in c. this

chart shows democratic classes by type in 2010. again, we see the clinton coalition pieces i'm talking about, where democrats have for the greatest losses. writer appalachia, 14 democrats must be a world like that and we see the rural south nine from areas where bill clinton had invigorated popularity for the democrat. look at the northern suburbs. 13 democrats lost in the northern suburbs and for more than seven suburbs. we can debate about whether one client district, alan weiss in west palm beach county center of the two for all intents and purposes a nice of you. it is the suburbs and happily shove it to democrats and beard areas training democratic

because they been the party of fiscal responsibility and social moderation. it swung back towards republicans and democrats took us doing to the left. to put things in perspective, al gore and john kerry won 47% of suburban vote for barack obama improved to 50% in 2008. congressional democrats won only 42% of suburban tea party so. in further perspective, michael dukakis won 40% of the suburbs. we talk about a coalition that noted the end of 2010 have been put right back where they started from to the point where the women senators about the same rate michael dukakis won, but they don't have the strength michael dukakis had an grader alicia. it's not a good place for democrats to find themselves. among white catholics, democratic votes trump from 47% in 2008 to 39% in 2010. quite possibly democrats are showing among the group since

1920s. way voters without college degrees we can broadly generalize to be the white working class spawned from a 40% above the group in 2008 to 33% democratic group in 2010. suburbanites appealed away from the democratic coalition in 2010. and skipping in the interest of time, but i do have to share one of my favorite quotes. rusty for the come, southeastern oklahoma running for seats his seat in the state legislature in the curtain county spent $170 on a state for the oklahoma state house against the longtime incumbent. this is a district radio 1% of voters still registered democrat and he managed to win. his comments on the race kind of sums up 2010 for any he said. i'm still kind of in a status to leave. i never thought of that to see the day when republicans could be like to do the county. if you let at the same jacksonians reaches over 200 years that are really being did

mean today. so where do we go from here? i think the key thing to understand about this is nothing that happened in 2008 or 2010 is written in stone to continue in the future. as i said, voters are smart. they know what is going on and pay attention to a politicians and parties are saying. they don't automatically attach themselves anymore to republican or democratic parties. they picked up on the leftward shift over the course of 1996 to 2008 and made a similar shift to republicans. if republicans are over reached, the local route back to democrats. but i think there are a few big picture things that i need to cover. a lot of what we have heard in the media, especially after the send is being released is kind of a resurgence of this emerging democratic majority, the idea that the demographic shifts are driving us inexorably to her

dominance that will make it difficult for republicans to win in 2012. as i tried to emphasize, and firmly of the opinion that demographics are destiny. i don't think you can be straight-line projections. this is why. there's four parts to emerging democratic majority is described. minorities and the white working class, women and people living in indianapolis this, which are upper-middle-class suburbs. later on they added millennial to the idea of which are younger voters who they say will maintain their democratic labels. a few of these i can take care of pretty quickly. the white working class and suburbanites have talked about quite a bit in the context of the clinton coalition. they've been abandoned the democrats because democrats are no longer seen as the party in social moderation. we can debate amongst ourselves whether that's a fair brand, but it's a fact he no longer the

democrats that way. the idea of the women's vote or telling democrats that for every action there's an equal and opposite reaction. we can talk about a gender gap, regardless did make a this or make a this, but like this and this. the flipside is that democrats don't do as well among men and men and women are about equally distributed in the population. a few more in the electric 52% of the electorate. but is still shifted up and down. as republicans do have a problem with with voters, democrats have a problem with male voters. as for millennial's, or just give the simple fact. in 1972, george mcgovern got blown out of the water. he lost by historic margins to richard nixon. but there was one group that pulled the lever for george mcgovern. who was that? those are 1820-year-old voters.

who are the groups that is barack obama's strongest opponent today quotes it is the exact same 1829-year-old voters going for george mcgovern in 1972. if you do the math, 1972 to 2012 is 40 years. a voter 18 tonight 29-year-old is 58 to 69 years old today. you cannot say what a kid is doing what is 18 to 29 will drive what he's doing in his 50s or 60s. a lot of changes go on. it may be the case. i'd be shocked if it was. i want to spend the last 10 minutes talking about the latino vote because it's incredibly important to our country's politics. and at the basis for a counterrevolution of thousands the 1960s and his famous book come in the emerging republican majority, kevin phillips noted that clubs have provided new level political consciousness

for hispanic americans in texas to support the first roman catholic president. phillips estimated from 1960 to the 1972, mexican-americans gave 84% of their vote to democratic anchovies. this is critically important. why? they don't get anywhere near 40% of their vote the democratic presidential candidates today. in fact, if we look at the democratic leaning of the hispanic electorate, i like latino better. by year from 1980, exit polls don't go back before 1980. you have to estimated out. this is relatively speaking. it democrats win 57% of the vote nationwide and latino voters 162% for democratic candidate, and say that the five-point democratically. you can see the transactionally towards the republican. gradually over the past few

decades compared to the countries involved in latino voters have converge towards the center of american politics. this is contrary to everything you've you better bet in emmaus about latino voters. you also hear latino voters are in the electric and it's just not true. in 2002, latinas 80% of the electorate. 2004, 8% of the electorate. 2006, 8%, 2008, 9% electric, 201050% of the electorate. but tina voters for rapidly as a share of the population, but they just aren't in train the electorate at the rate you would expect to see from the census numbers. in fact, judas had to shower are writing 2001 and 2002 at redacted by 2010 minorities that constitute 25% of the electorate while in 2008, professor alan abramowitz predicted in 2010 no more than 76% of voters will be

white lilies to the set will be african-american and 13% either hispanic or members of other racial minority groups. abramowitz on a step further predicted because republican candidates have given him a 60% of the white coats when 50% of the overall national popular vote in 2010 and because republicans hadn't done that since the very good republican year of 1994 and matter-of-fact family when 50% a year, it's almost impossible for republicans to take over the house in 2010. all these predictions were wrong. minorities didn't constitute 25%. whites are more than 76% of the 2010 electorate and republicans won more than 60% of the way the in 2010. in house races, which constituted 77% of these are non-hispanic whites. a larger share than in the 2004 for 2008 elections and democrats who see 37 of white votes.

the team is made up 8% just as they had in 2006 and 2004. what is happening that goes beyond this is integration has topped off in this country with the onset of the great depression of the modern depression or whatever you want to call it, latino immigration just isn't occurring. what is happening in this action shows up in the sent its members as well. while there's an explosion in latino growth, most of them children born to latino people already in the country. this is incredibly important to the future of american politics. why is this? let's take a look over the last decade. first of the republican share vote by ideology. liberal african-american voters, moderate african-american voters and conservative african-american voters vote heavily democratic. non-hispanic whites on the other hand sword etiology. you can see that white liberals

get 10% to 20% of dutch republicans. moderates split 50/50 while conservative white kid 80% to 90% of their vote to republicans. latino voters do more or less the same thing that white voters do. conservative latinos don't vote is heavily republican as non-hispanic whites do. liberal latinas but about the same and moderate patino so slightly more democratic than their white counterparts do. but latino voters cite a verse of the voting pattern. what makes latino vote heavily democratic is there and it's been a concerted latinas as conservative whites. we see the same thing if we do it by income. you see african-american voters regardless of income and talking about race is a difficult thing. i want to make clear that you have to generalize if you're going to talk about voting patterns. but it's clustered to bottom.

similarly, white folks clustered towards the middle and richard white boat more republican. they tried with latino voters. a bit of a shift downward for the whites voting patterns, but it's roughly the same. again, the reason the latino vote in heavily democratic as of late is there aren't as many wealthy latino voters says there will be white voters. this is going to change dramatically in the next 10 to 20 years as latinas become more assimilated into american society, as latino children go to college and graduate school and become doctors and lawyers, just like my italian and irish ancestors date, though eventually join the ranks of the middle class. and the statistics are just as do that they will become much, much more republican. and that is why we have seen from the 1960s and

mexican-americans were voted 85% democrat to today would mexican-americans though 60% democrat, you see a large ship because of the increasing assimilation into american society. i not see any reason the trend doesn't tinea. in closing, i think there is one other thing to keep in mind. we have seen again and again in american history the coalition of everyone just can't continue to exist. in a diverse country, different groups of the voting populace will have different interests in the outcome. this is one of the major problems democrats remained two and 2008. they had a situation where once they were given unified control of congress, they were forced to pick winners and losers and that always happens when you get in congress. it has been in the public is because and republicans in 1920s and democrats in the

1930s. we can see this, for example, in arizona. senate bill 1070, racial profiling bill absolutely drove latinas that it jamborees governing coalition. she did not do well as john mccain had done. the flip side of the reason she ran a hundred john mccain is that it drove moderate white voters swung towards republicans that year. that is a potential problem for anyone to put together a coalition of everyone is that certain latino interests will line up with the way working-class interest in you go to keep posting your coalitions. we see this within the democratic party in inner cities or places like los angeles and denver was the multiracial coalitions, pirate because the tensions between groups within the democratic party in the states. so in short, as we move towards 2012, and don't believe the hype about where democratic --

demographic trends are sending us. i would not be surprised to see latino turnout spike. i would not be surprised to see it stay the same or drop a little bit. if african-american turnout comes back to traditional levels of 11%, and that's to and barack obama's closed-circuit nitrate at the top in the 2008 turnout. i will say when it seemed. the president's approval rating among whites rate now is 33%. that is a huge problem because the minority vote in this country is very disproportionately spread out. you have a large contingency of states heavily looped because liberal whites lived there as well such as new york and california and in your states like mississippi and louisiana, where very conservative whites outnumbered. where this becomes critical in what the president's long-standing weakness among the way working-class and and now suburban voters is in the chair by the states, which are heavily

way. states like iowa, wisconsin, minnesota, ohio and pennsylvania. if numbers don't improve there, the democratic coalition doesn't have a chance in 2012. [applause] >> thank you. match, sean for a very interesting lecture. i'm sure provoked a lot of questions. >> my quick question is, what is a major issue in 2012 as for the election? the economy or race click >> it's not even close. the question is that the number one issue in the 2012 election will be. go after poll after poll says jobs, jobs and more jobs. everything else is going to be a sideshow. did i say jobs? you know, it is interesting because we saw -- we see this

unemployment rate continued to trend downward for the missing a lot of hoopla about how it's great news for the president. the problem of funding to keep in mind whenever you see economic numbers coming out is they are just measuring measuring a broader extent. so when you have a situation like today, where the unemployment rate drops that it's because people leave the workforce in the work force participation rate has been cratering, i don't eat the unemployment number of 8.5% has the same to the extent than it would have in other situations. it fueled the labor participation rates steady for barack obama's presidency, the unemployment rate .11.2% and that is what is really going to drive to america's perception of the economy going in 2012. >> wait for the mic. >> i'm just burning at

georgetown university. to what extent did the falloff in support for the democrats and obama relate to health care? i was astounded the democrats, ashley blue dugs didn't defend their health care vote, which is amazing. and i am wondering if the president and the democrats didn't sort of lucid narrative. there are ways of presenting what obama did that make them seem less liberal than maybe they are in health care reform is a good example. there's a lot of competition in there. a lot of cost saving, individual mandate, which was originally a republican idea. scituate x and does the presentation and framing of the issues that president account for his current and the

democrats current dilemma? >> there's two important points there. the president was in between a proverbial rock and a hard place. he couldn't come out and frame this as a portly conservative or moderate health care bill because he was trying to persuade liberals that the loss of the public option didn't make this site to insurance companies. that is a -- demonstrate the coalition. they have to win a district selling republican makeup of points because of gerrymandering. they will be four points not to the 2010 redistricting is done. so to have a large majority of two and 58 democrats coming to get democrats to represent conservative districts as well as d+ 45 districts. it's very difficult to have a message that would appeal to all these groups. but the health care bill absolutely illustrates the difference between the obama

administration's approach. clinton waved the white flag and went back towards an incremental approach on health care that got quite a bit done. affordability in 1997. in 1996 the kennedy kassebaum bill, introduction of as chip, a small program that's going to be significant program. this is but a moderate incremental approach can do i'm always trying to do something perceived by the american people is to out there in radical, even though it's arguably not. it leaves the party in a position where if you assume it's safe to effect the election, there's 50/50 chance this won't go into effect. so that is the difficulty the democrats find themselves in. >> michael perrone with pei and the "washtington examiner." sean connolly talked about how it difficult for a coalition to endure more than 50% together. but perhaps to confound

prediction about 2012 coming to speak in the book about the eisenhower coalition and suggest suggest -- use a jazz number one that exist in which most political scientists have not. eisenhower is an exception because he was a general with a smile. in your view, i think it persisted. can you say a few words about that? >> yeah, this is not some in college student should write on their exam because michael is correct as is my revisionist view of american history, political history. dwight eisenhower did -- it's approved. if you think of the nixon majorities in 68 in 72 in the reagan coalition, it is southerners, white working class voters and suburbanites.

well, what was dwight eisenhower's coalition? he was the first republican president to come close to kerry himself. he carried the deep south state louisiana in 1956. he did incredibly well the suburbs, which required part of the american medical scene pennies on the web in class voters and did very well among capital voters in union voters. he was kind of the proto- reagan majority. i would go so far as to say the reagan majority is completely based on the eisenhower majority if you look at county by county analysis went by the same counties. by this is able to persist so long? will come a of it is fortunate contingency, the coin flipping. the republicans happen to come in and times when the economy was on the upswing in democrats weren't fortunate -- i do want

to get into that debate, she had johnson president the ended disastrously in in a carter presidency that ended disastrously. more to the point, i think the cold war played a critical part in keeping eisenhower's presidency together. if you think it's a three-legged stool of the republican party, social conservatives and foreign policy conservatives, this continued existential threat that the democratic party had trouble dealing with gave some type of unifying band two of these groups in the republican party that persist to an unusually long periods of time. at the same time, democrats in the 1960s due to structural reform growing out of the commission they put together to reduce away to to congress for structured took a turn to the left unattended country was not going leftward. i think this also goes together with what we see at the end of the eisenhower coalition. once the threat of the cold war is removed, pieces of the republican coalition started to

break. suburbanites began to exit towards the democratic party. bill clinton has sensed that the democratic party towards the center so suburbanites pitas safer. bill clinton becomes harder and crying. there is that this idea will be sold out the soviets if you vote for democrats but i think persisted format of the 60s and 70s and helped keep the coalition together. >> loop mode from the institute of democracy. we said we towards that is the the obama administration has all but given up on the white working-class male. is there another coalition member that is looking to perhaps pick up the slack in your analysis on that. >> is actually a great debate that's been going on at the new republic and and a few of the other left-wing sites about whether obama should proceed in

2012 with what they call an ohio strategy, a focus on white working-class voters for what they call it colorado's strategy, which is the emerging -- kind of the indianapolis, the upscale white voters. it is clear upon has chosen the latter strategy, the colorado's strategy of freedom bakery and suburban upscale suburbanites. i think it's problematic because i think without 401(k)s -- i think a lot of the reason the suburbanites shift is so hard towards democrats in the 90s was because of this perception of fiscal responsibility, perception taxes would go up appreciably from this perception that democrats wouldn't be roukema though. in 2008 when you added to that, what are the two things when you graduate from college and take your job at a consulting firm or

go to law school and you're an associate of the law firm, with the older people there tell you to do once they've been initiated in the upper-middle-class? they say start putting your money in a 401(k) and buy a house as a way to protect your assets. well, take it for me, that was in such great in 2008 and 2009. and i think that is the fundamental problem that democrats have right now as they are not received by this group is fiscally responsible as they were in the clinton years. fairly or unfairly, that's the perception. there hasn't been recovery in housing values and stockmarket furling case. a little better in the 401(k) area, but still not what she wants to see. it's going to be really tough to get the appeals of these voters to the same high levels as in 2008. >> dale johnson. you discount long-term trends

that talk about short-term events. i can see that clinton may have been responsive. no new taxes and the ross perot effect and that they override the man date, overstepped it only became fiscally responsible after 94. ..

nets would really broken with a back what he had a run on in 1992. as far as -- iain you are right about george w. bush and his presidency. i'm critical of it in the book because i think there was a sense among republicans the and finally overcome -- they elected a unified republican controlled congress for the first time since 1952 and then be elected for the first time in the 1920's and the trajectory would keep going up and i think that drove a lot of decisions in 2005 and 2006 that brought about a backlash.

as far as where the republicans go -- and i think the compassionate conservatism of george w. bush did a lot to kind of reenforce the fraiman that many americans had and the party of fiscal responsibility. the deficits are the most obvious and the democrats for the first time in history and the polling even with republicans on issues like prosperity and government spending during the bush administration. the tea party movement is a tremendous opportunity for republicans especially claims control presidency but it's also a classic example of what until 50 about the difficulty of putting together a broad coalition. republicans go faulty party are they going to be able to hold white working-class voters who depend on the programs like medicare to a disproportionate extent? will they be able to hold together christian conservatives who watched the social issues

addressed once we finally get a unified control of government will they be disappointed if republicans don't deliver on the social issues? there's just going to be all these conflicting portions of the republican coalition that will be making life difficult for the republicans as they take control in 2012. >> if your name went from sean to david plus, what are the three policy issues and would advise to barnstorm on or maintain your 2008 electoral map? >> i think obama at this point is pretty well tied into the path he has to take. if he has to count on the rhine in plan, which i think is a potential weakness for republicans to begin with and they've done a terrible job of selling it. you can even argue paul ryan has backed off the plan i think that is entirely fair.

you need to barnstorm and african-american community cannot with the african-american vote fall down 313% to ten or 11%. if you knock that 3% of the barack obama's total against john mccain, then against mitt romney the increase in the republican support among the white is just going to overwhelm it so it is not even an issue that you need to push, you just need to be very and reinvigorate the sense of excitement of the historic nature of re-elect in the first african-american president to help drive that because remember a lot of the voters that came into the coalition from the african-american community in 2008 when these were voters who haven't to the they voted before who were not driven by a particular issue but by the historic nature of the candidacy even though there's almost certainly wide scale the agreement on the issues among these voters and i think the third thing puny to do is absolutely unique to drive home

the social issues because i think, you know, i will say this, people don't appreciate the strength the social issues give republicans. white evangelicals give republicans more votes than african-american latinos, give to the democrats. so i'm not trying to denigrate the importance of social issues to the republican coalition but because barack obama needs to get -- needs to try to get to that upscale white vote which isn't so heavily interest but the social issues back up towards the 2008 levels and i hate to say this but he has to scare some people and i think that is the only way to do it. >> we have three questions right in a row here and then you in the front and we will take the three at one time so in the back and then in the front. >> it sounds to me as though you are describing a coalition that

was driven by spending or a vote that was driven by spending over the last several cycles driven away from the republicans and driven away from the democrats. but then you are saying this time it almost sounds as though you are saying that doesn't matter anymore that concern over spending is old jobs and they are not blamed. is that what you're saying if you're a republican how do you hold the coalition that came to you in 2010 to get there? >> well, two thoughts. first if i sound like i'm saying it is all spending i'm oversimplifying. the iraq war was incredibly unpopular by the time the 2006 election. the financial collapse in 2008 had major issues and i thought when the vote was cast this would be gone and forgotten and

it was my troops in terms of the election prognostication because it reinforced some of the views that the upscale suburbanites have about the republican party devotion to social issues so i don't mean to go full board spending. i do think it was a large part of it. >> [inaudible] >> welcome yeah, it is a job selection. the economy is so terrible to the extent we haven't seen -- i think since the 1930's if you dig down to the economic indicators it's just the overwhelming issue and as far as how you hold it together long term, the answer is you don't. it is impossible in a large diverse country like this to hold together a broad coalition of overseas elections you have to pick winners and losers among the coalition. i think there's a very important point that michael verdone made on the panel that i was on and that is actually referred to in

the 2009 health care debate and this is important to keep in mind, it's not for winning the next election so there's a lot to be said for not keeping your coalition together but spending the art of history like see the 1946, arrested for the republicans partly ruined that coalition and some of the of the things they did it made this country what it is today. we would be in a very difficult or very different situation today if the republicans played a safe in 1946 and tried to win in 1948. >> what's but these three on the table starting with you. >> i understand the number one issue is jobs and more broadly the economy, but within different demographic blocks of the electorate do you see other issues like legal immigration of latinos out way or rival the economy as the number-one issue?

>> there was an interesting article before thanksgiving by ezra climate talked about the difference between the way that fdr came into office and the way that obama came into office. the point that it made was that the depression had gone on for three and a half years before fdr came in one, and in obama's caisse it really peaked right at the election time and went on for another three or four months and then since then it's been a very tepid recovery so that is one huge difference, and the other one was that at the time roosevelt was being pushed very hard by mostly southerners, people like jimmy burns from south carolina who wanted the government to do more and not less because the south was suffering so badly. this all this suffering badly now but that isn't where the

pressure to do something was coming from. i wonder if you would comment on that. >> we will let walter ask the final question. >> one of the effective foreign policy and defense policy on the election? you mentioned the republicans may have their genesis of the eisenhower coalition and now for the first time since eisenhower you have an isolationist republicans getting a lot of votes for a place within the primary. what effect do you see on that? >> okay. issue one latino voters and immigration, the answer to describe them, know. poll after poll shows that latino voters top issues and new jobs and the issue of immigration with latino voters is one of the largest disconnect between the reality. if i have one request in the network about the debates would be please, please, stop bringing

up the latino voter to ask immigration questions. it's condescending, but in 2008 to look at the exit polls 54% of latino voters said that either immigration was not an important issue to them or that it was an important issue to them and they voted republican anyway. the first time you've probably heard about but if you dig down into the exit poll numbers it is absolutely true and again become increasingly born in this country instead of immigrating to this country. the immigration issue is going to stay just like it was incredibly important to my italian grandparents who came off the boat. to me it's not as important but in this election a pretty clearly shows the job in elections for latinos. fdr. probably the most misunderstood president for people who don't actually study fdr you are right about the relationship he had.

the south was split up the time this today between really conservative people like carter, people dhaka with the tea party rhetoric. in 93 he blasted the they addressed the transparent effort to transplant hitler on to the borders of the shores of our country. but yeah people like jimmy byrnes wanted the new deal to do more and part of a whole idea behind the new deal was to try to transform south to make it more economically mobile with the idea that as people became more economically -- which in the south they will be more like jim byrnes and less like carter glass but it didn't end up working out that way. i think the main problem with the analogy i think it is an important one think about what the new deal did. it was all relief efforts. the first 100 days and i can't name all of them did you have the banking act of the agricultural adjustment act, the

national recovery act, you have the currency reform, the gold standard, the reform of wall street and all of these things in the first 100 days and it's not until the second half of roosevelt's term after he has won this historic victory in the democrats expand their majority which no one thought was going to happen that's when he finally begins to turn to things like the labour legislation and social security. compare that with barack obama. what did he do in his first year of the presidency to address the economy? the stimulus bill and you can say the bailouts which were incredibly important. my personal view is the number one problem with the obama administration of least in the early days was it didn't split the bill up you should have had ten stimulus bill that added up to the but reach

70 billion-dollar bills that just hammered home the idea we care about the economy. i think first of hominy republicans standing alone would against the tax cut bill? i'm sure some of them would but it wouldn't be zero like it in the that been for the stimulus. how many would vote against the port, the infrastructure spending bill was quick to have a lot of spending to leave chris jansing alone, a lot of them but it wouldn't be 100% and that would have given president obama some momentum like a 50 hour momentum and is still blows my mind the financial regulation was put off until almost the end of the first half of the term. if nothing else that's what the american people sent barack obama to deutsch and was put on the back burner. from the political perspective to be its mind blowing there may have been policy reasons and i don't want to denigrate those but i'm here to talk about the politics. final question about foreign policy it's not a foreign policy

election. i find the ron paul phenomenon fascinating in part as a student of history, libertarian but i see him like a resurgence of the bob taft way of the party probably due to the fact he probably came of political age when bob taft was running the party. is there a future for that in the republican party? i don't know. i think that younger voters are inclined to be. that is probably true across the generations. we will see what they look like in 20 or 40 years to. >> final question. >> when one hears of the voters talked about the electability as to who they were voting for does

it matter? the personal characteristics on the outcome of an election? >> people are saying they want to electability but that begs the larger question, write? no one votes for rick santorum and thinks that he's unelectable in the general election or ron paul. they are convinced that ron paul can win the general election and i don't want to fill up my in box with thousands of hate mail so i will just leave it at that. the personal characteristics of these candidates the white think it is something that matters to people. it is something that drives perceptions of the candidates and whether they can win. if someone is a mess i think it makes it difficult for people to convince themselves they can win an election. you will remember even in 1992 people had written bill clinton off. there's actually a great book that was written and i would

appoint the money and as soon as i started talking about it but they have a great quote from one of his top advisers talking of the early stages of the '92 election they were afraid he was going to miss the debate because he would fall below the threshold and the modern democratic party would end as we know it and a lot of that was due to the personal issues surrounding clinton. ross perot kind of came into the spotlight and give a chance to regroup but i do think that character still counts in american politics. i think the character drives perceptions of the candidates and whether they will let chollet do what they say they are going to do and actually be able to appeal to the american people. whether that wins out this time, we will see. we have a long way until november. [applause] >> thank you very much. >> please join us for the

reception outside. books are for sale.legation.

this id a half

hours. >> may i have your attention? thank you and good evening. by name is michael powers. i'm a marketing and customer relations manager for the northeast air as the united states postal service. thank you very much. great input already. i appreciate that. i will be serving as tonight's moderator for the town -- for the community meeting for anp process. a couple housekeeping issues if i made before we begin. in the unlikely event that we need to vacate this space, the emergency exit is to my left, to my right, in front, two doors in the back. mentzer mideastern are located at the far end of the hall. for those of you who currently have a cell phone or an electronic device, a kindly ask you turn it to me at.

and for any hearing-impaired people here tonight, we have signed service is available, seats available reserved as well to my last. let me begin by thanking the american legion post 26 and specifically commanded deanne reid for allowing us to be here tonight to user space. commander, where are you, please? thank you, commander. [applause] i would like to introduce a number of folks with us tonight. i would say to first introduce senator that he is a test. [applause] senator sanders. [applause]

congressman welch. [applause] governor shumlin. [applause] i'd also like to introduce a representative from senator shaheen, bethany urich. [applause] with us also are the representative from congressman bowser's office, chris collins. [applause] also representing the u.s. senator from new hampshire, mica skylight. [applause] also with us, jim condos for and secretary of state. [applause] new commissioner from department

of labor. [applause] also, vincent losey, vermont state senator. also with us are a number of folks in the united states postal service. district manager, and a bass essler. delete plant manager for the northern new england district, michael breed. [applause] be acting plant manager for the white river junction, mary woodward, also known as woody. [applause] and from our postal unions, jonker ziskin a regional coordinator for the northeast region of the american postal leaders union. [applause] wayne martin, local president at

local 520 for the av debut. [applause] frank rogerio on agents for the american postal workers union. [applause] representing the national association of postal supervisors in vice president, i do mouse. from vermont state president of the national association of postal supervisors, rayfield. [applause] and randy sharon, the burlington national association of postal supervisors. [applause] from our mail handlers union, local 301, new england president of the mail handlers union, tim dwyer. [cheers and applause]

and the branch president of the white river junction, bill kramer. and i'd also like to recognize a number of current postal employees that are here in the audience tonight as well as and i would ask for a lot of applause for every tire postal employees. [applause] as information come with two cameras located >> in the back of the room and i would like to invite c-span being here tonight and they will be filming throughout the night. i very much appreciate you to take your time to come to white river junction tonight. into my rate, the two women will be recording all that is said tonight and making it as a matter of the record. just briefly, why are we are here, the purpose is to get

input from postal service is looking for input relative to a current study that is being conducted with the white river junction plant processing facility. the reason that this study is being conduct did this the postal service fans ourselves in a financial difficult situation. and that is no new news to anybody. as information since the year 2006, our urbanization has seen a loss of 43 billion pieces of mail per year. because of that, it is requiring us to take actions to ensure the greater efficiencies are the efficiencies of the postal service on a national basis maintained. we find ourselves in a situation it will have a presentation by deb that will clearly articulate the enormous challenges we us

americanization face. we thank you for being here tonight. we look forward to the input. any comments or questions you may have, understand, no decision has been made relative to the white river junction plant as we speak today. this is a process again that we have instituted on a national basis. this is a segment that is very important to us. what you have to say is that they will take forward and consider as we begin to create the postal service said the future. so again, welcome. with that, i would like to introduce to everybody the district manager of the northern new england district. the northern new england district covers the state, deb essler covers new hampshire vermont and maine. [applause]

>> okay. we will speak real loud and i invite -- i encourage others that will be speaking tonight are the problem with the room as the speaker system and halfway through the room. so what we have done is put a temporary speaker here and we'll try to extend as far as we can. but we will definitely speak out. these continue to let us know if it's difficult to hear in the back. all right? thank you. >> thank you very much, mike. welcome, everyone. this is a very important part of the process. as mike pointed out, it is preliminary information we will share with you in terms of the area the processing study. one of two out of 52 studies currently going on across the united states. as you know, the postal service has recently announced it intends to see some significant changes. in the mail processing network among other things. i've given you some background tonight on these changes and why we believe they are necessary.

i will associate the proposed changes for mail processing operations located at white river junction, vermont. i have a lot to cover tonight and as many questions and hopefully a lot will be answered as we go through the presentation. i'm going to have to sit or questions, comments and concerns until we're finished with their presentation tonight. we are here tonight to hear from the community and we hope you focus your questions and comments and concerns on service and cost and customer issues. potential employee impacts are summarized in the presentation as well in labor issues are handled internally within the postal service with the appropriate personnel. let's begin tonight with just a short video that will help illustrate the process mail today. ♪

first-class mail is declining at a rapid pace because people are mailing last, with less mail to process and deliver, postal service has to make smart business decisions that are critical to preserving his future. the postal service has undertaken area mail processing. these studies are one part of the overall strategy to get the postal service on the path to profitability, strengthen its financial future for those customers and employees. right now, the postal service has saved vast network of mail processing facilities here at the facilities were established many years ago to process increasing mail volumes. as a nation group, so did the postal service. but now it's so many web-based communications available, people and businesses are moving away from the postal service for sending those, statement and other documents that were once held exclusively through

first-class mail. the simple fact is that the postal service must adjust its mail processing network to evolve as our nation's mailing habits change. most mail processing occurs during overnight hours, with the majority of the processing occurring between midnight and 6:00 a.m. during the day, however, there is little processing that actually occurs. most people our mail and accepted meanings. for a significant part of the day, the plant is largely idle. here's the problem. but there's a lot of capacity to process an ever dwindling volume of mail, how can the current system of mail processing be changed with little or no impact to the customer? the answer has to do is something called mail service standards, what most customers may not realize is first-class mail currently receives overnight service in metropolitan areas. because of this standard, the nationwide processing operations has been set up to handle this

need. the sobering reality is that first-class mail volumes will not return to the levels in the past and changing service standards to match reality is one way of keeping the postal service bible. viable. ..

we just have to get our financial house in order right now. >> have these changes would bring huge changes but also lay the foundation for the financially stable service will but we continue to serve our customers for many years to come were 64.

before i go forward with the presentation i just want to make a couple of comments. i think it's really important that we all understand while there are 252 sightings going on currently across the united states there were no facilities selected based on any criteria that was specific to performance. the junction performance is outstanding the employees are outstanding this was a network realignment of the social service. [applause] and it's based on looking at the network changes we are going through right now and where we want to be between now and 2020 to really be successful and support a very large industry as well so in no way is this an indication that our employees

again are not doing an outstanding job because they are. the postal service is responding to a changing marketplace. the reality is the value of the mali process annually has declined more than 43 billion pieces in the past five years and we know it will continue to decline. as a result the mail processing network is not much larger than we can afford. looking ahead the declining volumes dictate that we must make radical changes to the mail processing network and so this evening we will provide you information around two very important topics. first that we intend to rely on the mail processing network in the next two years based on the to to treat a standard for local delivery of first-class mail and a second the initial results of the area processing site of preliminary information on the reduction from last.

to bolster the case for change let me start with this graph. it shows the trends in the production through 2020 it shows our first-class product which includes both traditional cards and letters that you put a postage stamp on and the standard mail also known as advertising mail. 2006 was the high water mark. since then first-class mail has declined 20% deutsch electronics and version and the economic slowdown. the sobering reality is first-class mail will not returned to the previous levels. more and more people are continuing to use electronic means to communicate to pay their bills. experts predict the continued decline in the volume of the first-class mail which is the product that drives the network requirements and pays our bills and the postal service

contributes the most to the bottom line. during part of the businesses advertising mail which we expect to show some growth in the out years but even significant growth and continued growth of that we are experiencing in the volume is not enough to make out for the ongoing decline in the first-class mail this change in the makeup of the male for first cost of advertising mail therefore has significant institutions for the postal service infrastructure for two major reasons. one is the volume of declining with less revenue to cover the cost of the infrastructure and number two we also have excess capacity through the network. simply put to process less kneal we need to look at your facilities. i'd like to mention the word

capacity a few times tonight. it relates to the devotee to process mail and packages. our mail processing network footprint involved for many years in response to the volume fluctuation for the improvement technology between 1970 and 2006 our focus was on expanding to handle on the then current volume from 1970 to 2006 we increased the used to the greater efficiency. we build a large new facilities to house the advanced processing equipment it was the purpose of growth and a significant capital investment to the postal service. we build facilities with the confidence at that time the the population and the economy make rules that the volumes will also increase. since 2006 the confidence in the perpetual volume growth has evaporated.

prior to 2006 our operational goal was to stay ahead of the growth curve to ensure that we had the capacity to support the larger volumes. now our operational goal in this cost curve is to ensure that we have just enough capacity to meet the lower volumes. and to operate at a lower cost than our revenue can support in the future. so now we are going from the expanding environment and to a contracting environment. we have to reduce the mail processing infrastructure to get ahead of the declining volume. this activity is at the core of our ability to the profitability. reducing our infrastructure in response to the volume decline is really nothing new. since 2006 the mail volume dropped 20% and we reduced our network buy nearly 200 mail processing facilities. we did this successfully without any impact on our customers.

in fact we delivered record service during this period. these reductions were accomplished without laying off any of our employees. how did we do that? in part through the process involving area mehl processing studies which we are here for to discuss tonight eventually had been using this process for a decade and has served us very well. using the study data and objective criteria we determined whether the business takes for the consolidation. and there are opportunities built into the process opportunities including the input meetings such as the one here tonight. and also a written comment period that extends 15 days beyond tonight. these are times for the committee members and any stakeholders to comment ask questions and provide concerns to the postal service and many times from these meetings suggestions as well as how we go forward and looking at the right thing to do. we will continue to follow the

process with the study data the public input and objective criteria in making our decisions. by 2013 the network makes up fewer than the 200 mail processing facilities which would put at the head of the cost curve for the remainder of the decade. we know this has been a plan with of the operating network that would need to be to meet the needs of the nation the next 30 years. here is what our mail processing footprint looks like today. you can see we have facilities throughout the country, facilities in varying sizes that employee anywhere from 50 to 2,000 employees. what happens in these facilities is relatively simple. first the mail is brought in almost always accommodation of the mail collected from post offices and drop off directly by business customers. then it is sort of almost all of

it during an automated process and either shipped back for local delivery or shipped to another mail processing facility depending on its ultimate destination. to support our overnight service commitment, most of this processing takes place in the middle of the night. in fact our entire network was designed based on a requirement that we maintain the capability to deliver first-class mail on the next business day. this requirement presents us from being able to sort the mail until all the mail that needs to be sorted gets to the delivery order for the last year and a right to the facility. this has enormous implications because it constrains our operating window to process mail in the middle of the night and enforce us to make a large number of mail processing locations. >> this represents all of the mail processing facilities for

possible consolidation. the blue stars and i realize they are hard to see from the audience here, the blue stars represent facilities for which studies are already underway and the rest represent the 252 additional mail processing facilities that are on the list would be released by the postal service on september 15th. as you can see -- >> why don't we just talk about -- new hampshire >> we will be getting to that. appreciate that. >> [inaudible] [applause] [inaudible] [applause] the study's will have the overall financial impact of

closing and consolidation and significant stakeholder input. this is what the mail processing network might look like in the future if after consolidation all of the studies were approved the standard is the stated goal for the service achievement for each class of mail the postal network is built to meet the existing goals. that means that even though the dramatic decline in mail volume is resulted in excess and a network it will reduce the network to address the excess capacity problems we would not be able to consistently achieve the existing service standards. that's why we intend to propose to rebuild the network based on the two to three days standards for the local delivery of first-class mail. the operational would be tremendous. and even though the change would go relatively unnoticed by the

average customer this would allow us to design and much more efficient lower-cost mail processing network to the facility. [inaudible] here we get a sense of what the changes would represent. let me show you how we meet the current overnight first-class mail delivery requirement. the circle represents 24 hours. on the left you see that the overnight first-class mail delivery requirement in the mail processing time into a small window of activity. beginning roughly at midnight and continuing the next four to six hours. i did meet last night and earlier this morning with some of the employees at the junction post office at the plant and they wanted to be sure that you knew that in white river junction you process more than the four to six hours, significantly more. even with that, we are going to show you a little further along in the presentations there are

strong business case is but this represents the national the average of mail processing and it is a little bit longer window in the junction. deutsch the overnight first-class mail service to her to have to maintain its capacity even though it's not especially efficient. given the time and distance associated with getting mail to and from each facility it also means we have to maintain numerous facilities. the proposal operating model would be based on changing to the two to three day first-class service range. this would allow meal to be processed during much longer stand in the 24-hour slide. we anticipate that this kind of future network would support a two to 31st class standard. what include revised time for dropping of first-class mail or what we call entry time for

first-class mail. we would also expect the consolidations would result in an estimated 50% reduction in the mail processing equipment and significant reduction in our physical footprint eliminating the capacity many times when the equipment is not running in our network. but also enabled of us and our customers to optimize transportation. the question about these changes is how does it attract the customer? there are two major areas of change that would attract the commercial customer. first the local footprint. literally where business customers would need to drop off meal. customers can drop me off at most any accepting facility. however estimating the scum that some currently receive may not be entered where it is processed the team is available to discuss the specific concern to the

mailers we did meet to discover an ongoing dialogue with them. shouldn't this be a study that goes forward we would want to problem solve with them on a regular basis to make sure that this is not impacted. we also think our commercial customers would be able to really accommodate the new schedule. many of our largest customers and have told us this is something we need to consider. we know the proposed changes would have a significant impact on the mailing industry and local mailers. we outlined the proposal to both the major industrial groups and successful basis and generally have been pleased with the response. we have a good track record of working with the industry and global mailers and are committed to making sure the transition would be as smooth as possible, again if this were a sight that were to go forward.

list speak for a moment about our employees. the business decisions were not made lightly and these changes would affect many of our employees. we've dedicated and committed work force not only in white river junction but across northern new england and across the united states. postal employees to a phenomenal job and they deserve tremendous credit for achieving record service and efficiency means over the past few years. even in very challenging times. [applause] nearly every employee in the mail processing facility can be helped by these changes. changes even the possibility of change is very unsettling. change becomes reality we would make every effort to accommodate employees and provide positions where we can. we also worked closely with our unions to reposition the

affected employees. over the past 12 years the work force has been reduced by 250,000 positions mostly through attrition which largely involves requirement. we've never had to lay off employees as part of the culture for a responsible employer and that won't change. now that i shared a little bit about the general information on the processing, let's talk a little bit more about this study. again, let me make it clear that we have great employees at the river junction. this slide shows the extent of the white river junction of the manchester location at approximately 82 miles apart. this gives you a little geographic information here.

the next slide shows 91 miles between the white river plant and the burlington vermont plant processing center. if the consolidation of operations at these facilities is approved, there is an expected annual savings of almost $8 million. the business case shows the data that the mail processing work hours savings are estimated to be $3.3 million annually. the mail processing management savings are estimated to be $487,000 the maintenance savings $3.2 million annually and the transportation savings of 490,000. there are other miscellaneous savings you will notice the slide doesn't add up to the bottom line. these are the major categories the we keep you here tonight.

in most consolations employees are impacted the often change jobs, hours and over rotation. reassignment will be made in accordance with the agreement that we have with the union in this time to go forward. the study shows that projected net reductions under 51 employees. every event will be made to place employees in a job with a number district. so you understand what that net impact is. it's taking the number of positions in the three plants involved, manchester, new hampshire, white river junction, vermont and burlington vermont which is an ethics junction. and after the study if we were to close white river junction there would be a net increase of the 51 positions for the three facilities. the proposed consolidation would support a two or freed a service standard for first-class mail.

other local customer considerations include retail services currently available at the river junction processing distribution center. those would remain to be a business meal acceptance units that are currently at the white river junction processing facility will also remain. the collection by the time could be adjusted slightly if it went through. in local postmarks continue to be available for first-class mail to take that to retail and delivery times to the residences customers would be unchanged and unaffected so the mail delivery would be the same time each day that it is now. for the commercial mailers who presort the mail continue to receive appropriate postage discounts. mailers who dropped shift the section also devotee discount can expect that there could be changes if it is approved. we did discuss some of these changes this afternoon with some

of our larger mailers and they are giving us some very detailed information on the impact would have so we can start looking should this go forward on how we invest and support each of them. >> can i ask a question? >> if you can wait until when finished would appreciate that. thank you. as i stated earlier this evening it's currently under review at the area headquarters there may be changes to the study made. we will continue to take comments through january 19th so that we can take all of those comments for work to the area in the headquarters office that the at&t proposal can be considered at that time. we take very seriously our obligation for the entire industry. it's a trillion dollar industry that employs more than 8 million people across the united states. we are soliciting your input to night so that we can make sure

we make good business decisions that you heard your comments questions and suggestions are heard and we continue to make the male strong for us, for you and the industry for many years to come. we will leave this up there to remind you that you do have 15 days after tonight and want to be sure that in addition to the information that's been written down here for questions and comments tonight that you also are encouraged to mail in any of those to us as well to read >> [inaudible] before we get into the question and comment section -- >> [inaudible] >> thank you. before we get into the general question and comment part of the presentation, we have some very distinguished guests i would like to invite up to speak and i'd like to begin with governor

shumlin, please. [applause] estimates before. i'm honored to be here and i will be very brief because i want to hear -- i know we want to hear the obligation wants to hear from the hard working employees of the u.s. postal service that do such an extraordinary job delivering in our mail on time in vermont. so my hat goes off to you. thank you for being here tonight. i want to thank so much all of you for being here and our congressional delegation for helping to organize this forum tonight. i feel blessed as your governor to serve in the state that has the best congressional delegation in america, senator leahy. [applause] they don't get any better than senator leahy.

senator sanders and congressman welch our hometown boys a thank you very much. [applause] before i say a few words about the sheer idiocy of shutting down the white river junction processing facility -- [cheering] i want to thank our congressional delegation for the announcement that just came through from washington where they with their extraordinary power rests convince the congress who does almost nothing to send hundreds of millions of dollars back to the state of vermont to help us rebuild from the worst flood in our history. thank you, bernie, patrick, peter. we are proud of you. [applause] a couple of quick words. i was born and raised in windham

county and we understand what closing the white river junction processing facility would mean to vermont. we are a rural state the and we require mail to get to us not only to communicate with our loved ones, but to run our businesses, create jobs and economic opportunities. it is critical for the to wondered 50 hard working people who process the male right here and do a great job of it. it's critical as we slowly crawl out of the worst recession in american history and start building jobs in vermont that we have a postal service that delivers mail when we send it not to the four or five days later that we send. [applause] i say this to the u.s. postal service you do a great job.

it doesn't get a better. in my other life in the private sector i run a small business just south of here called put me student travel. we rely on the white river junction facility to get our product to the market that allows us to employ vermont, and they don't do it any better than here. but we happen to do in that business is sent community projects with high school students all over the world to developing countries and the one thing that helps us is that the u.s. postal service gets mail reliably to people when you need to get their. we dread sending mail to the third world developing countries that we are dealing with because their postal services don't. this proposal will join that in having a backwater postal service that costs us jobs and economic opportunity.

[applause] i will close by saying this. we in rural vermont are an internet service is spotty, cellphone service is at times nonexistent needed the postal service more than anyone else in america, keep it open, keep it strong, keep our hard-working postal employees working and go somewhere else to find pretend savings. what i find extraordinary about this is -- [applause] and i ask this one question. if the studies on the madison avenue videos intact suggest that there are going to be savings to through employees but are somehow not going to lose any jobs i ask what kind of math

you are using. [applause] so i will be standing together with our congressional delegation to do everything we can to bring sense to the u.s. postal service could keep the white river junction postal center open and keep us a growing jobs and economic opportunities in vermont. thank you. [applause] >> okay, thank you come governor. [cheering] [applause]

thank you, governor. at this time i would invite senator leahy, please, senator [applause] >> does this sound better? okay normally i would go first but i'm not going to. as senator sanders who has worked so hard on this along with the congressman and myself to speak first and i will speak after but i want to read just one thing. we got a lot of christmas cards this year, a lot. one that we saved especially is from chris richardson. is he here? [applause] there he goes to get my family and i just want to take a second and thank you for all you've

done for the post office, its employees, their families, their customers, we appreciate everything you've done. i want you and your families to know senator sanders, congressman, governor shumlin and i will not stop one moment. [applause] >> thank you. [applause] let me begin by thanking all of you not only for being here this is a phenomenal turnout, that think you for the extraordinary work you do every single day. sometimes we take for granted. we shouldn't. you are doing a great job and think you for that. [applause] i also want to thank the post

office. this meeting was originally scheduled for december 18th. there was a very bad time. i appreciate your rescheduling the meeting to a more convenient inappropriate time. now let me begin by taking up on a point that the governor and senator leahy had already made. we are in the midst of the worst recession since the great depression triet 25 million americans are either unemployed or underemployed. on the floor of the senate and the house senator leahy, congressman welch and i and many others are doing everything we can to try and i have to tell you again very strong opposition to try to create millions of jobs our economy needs. we are also trying to make sure that our veterans get the jobs that they are entitled to. in the midst of all of that it is in san to be talking about

throwing 100,000 americans out of work. [applause] the post office has made a case which is certainly true. this is the 21st century. many of us use e-mail. we know that there must be changes in thece but in my view if the postal service does the right thing and in congress senator leahy, congressmen welch and i are working on legislation to do that, there are business models available to grow the postal service rather than cutting and cutting. [applause] , this is the business model of

the postmaster general in the postal service right now. they want to eliminate 252 processing plants, or they are looking at that concluding the one here in white river junction. they want to shut down thousands of the rural post offices which in many parts of our country and our state are the centers in town if we have people come together including 15 in the state of vermont. [applause] they want to eliminate saturday mail delivery. now when the you do all of that in my view when you do as the post office indicated slow down the mail delivery so when i put a piece in the mailbox if they get to the destination in today's, three days, maybe even five days, when all the people will be delayed in getting their

prescription drugs, when you begin to do that, you are the sort of way that cycle, a death spiral for the post office. [applause] because who is going to use the post office at its strongest attribute of the speedy delivery the longer exists? now one of the things that senator leahy, a congressman welch and i have worked on with some success is that i had a very strong feel that with the post office wanted to do is ramrod these cuts against congress could act. so no matter what legislation may be out there doesn't matter if congress doesn't have the time to deliberate and deal with country inns of legislation. we met with postmaster general donahue a few weeks ago and had a very long meeting. i wanted a six month moratorium on the cuts. we agreed to a five month

moratorium. the importance of that is that when we return from washington in january, the end of january, one of the first orders of business up in the senate will be comprehensive postal reform. [applause] now what is disappointing about the postal presentation i really have a hard time understanding it to the it is absolutely true the first-class mail system. no one knows that, but one of the great financial problems facing the post office in addition to the decline of the first-class mail is in addition to the recession is absolutely unfair and onerous financial requirements be made on the postal service. [applause] and it's very hard to understand

and presentation how this is dealt with. the postal service as a result, not their fault, as a result of congressional action some years ago is required to come up with about $5.5 billion every single year for future health care retirees. there is no other agency or government that comes close to having this requirement, and its best as we can understand there is no company in america that has to do that. [applause] now i talked briefly to the gentleman who was the head of the office of personnel management and he agreed that this is an onerous and unnecessary requirements. there is already enough money in the future retiree health benefit program to pay off benefits for the next 20 years.

the post office does not need to come up with 5 billion. that number can be very significantly reduced and that is part of the legislation that senator leahy, congressman welch and i are working on. will that solve all the problems? no, but it's a good start. [applause] second of all, the postal service has overpaid the federal employees retirement system and is now agreed upon over $11 billion. if the post office can report that money plus the cuts in what they have to pay to retiree health benefits, that will come close to giving the postal service the $20 billion they need in the first four or five years to reach the kind of solvency that they are talking about. [applause]

in addition to that of the house side, congressman welch is on board legislation, which would provide that $55 billion in overpayment made to the civil service retirement system be returned to the post office as well. [applause] so the point is does the postal service have to change? the answer is yes. but we also have to be fair to the postal service and not place burdens on them that no other agency of the government has or no other private sector company has. so we have to short-term focus on these accounting issues to give the postal service the three, four, five years that it needs to begin the kind of reorganization. now, the business models that the post office is talking about now is basically cut, cut, cut.

i disagree on that approach. we do need a new approach, but the new approach must be an entrepreneurial approach, an approach of growth, an approach of being aggressors in the business community. for example, right now, giving some examples of this, right now i walk into a post office, and i say to the clerk you know who writes this letter for you know the clerk says, it is against a law for me to notarize that letter. it's against the law. if i say to the clerk by the we can you give me ten copies of this letter, i can't do it. post office does not allow to do that. it's not doing that today. if i'd been a rural post office and i see by the way, can you sell the fishing license orie hunton when simms, can't do that, it's against the law. i think if we get some smart people together to understand that we have a letter carriers

knocking on 60,000, 160, every single day we have infrastructure all over this country if we sit down and say how can the post office work with other government agencies, how can the post office be more with the private sector generating for business i think we can come up with solutions that is a lot more positive than the cuts that the post office is now bringing. [applause] for the last several months i've been working with some of her leaky on these issues now let me reintroduce senator patrick leahy. [applause] faugh >> thank you, bernie. deborah told me the hearing back

in the back and i said don't be unusual and shaw, speak up so we can hear you. thank you. [applause] serious for a moment. one of the hats that i wear representing all of you is as the chairman of the senate judiciary committee you may wonder why i bring that up. i want to remind when people talk about post office is being run in the business and so on, there is only one business it's referring to in the constitution of the united states. an article 1, section 8 of the constitution it gives congress the right to establish the postal service. that has been that way since this country was founded and all of you people work for the post office be proud of that. you are in the constitution.

[applause] if it isn't subtle, if it isn't too subtle color that means congress needs to be consulted before the postal service implements reforms that threaten to destroy itself. [applause] every day i wear this pin this was given to me when i was first sworn into the united states senate. among other things i took an oath to uphold the constitution. part of the constitution is how we established the postal service. i am not one iota on my oath to

uphold the constitution and neither will senator sanders or congressmen welch and i know the governor is with us on that. and you can count on that, too. [applause] you have not been shy letting us know how you think. i appreciate that. the mail handlers union, the others that have spoken up, thank you for doing that. you know, all of us worked together in 2006 to successfully reason the closure of a similar facility essex. now they are glad they didn't close it. senator sanders and i am congressman walsh feel that way. we haven't changed our mind about closing this facility or any of the processing facilities. it's not a case of us trying to hang on to something that's outdated and gone. making it work, and make the

constitution work and keep the postal service running. it is part of america let's not forget that. [applause] now, we do not have the testing moving -- fastest moving congress these days. we did have a lot of gridlock, but we are all going to work hard and we are going to see him to leave to seek help from republicans and democrats alike to make sure that we can to protect vermont and the service they expect from their postal service. i don't believe this is not the issue here tonight we are talking about processing but i don't believe the postal service should be balancing its budget on the backs of the rural post offices. and the door on the service standards the mail processing facilities. we are a special state, but we

work only if everything does work. so let's not -- i don't need to tell you all the things i have here what you should know them. but stop and think for a moment if you're going to do cuts that slope the service, that slow of their abilities, doesn't harm the future competitiveness of the post office? [applause] how in heaven's name is that helping? i'm just a small town lawyer born in mount the earlier and i can't figure that out i can't figure out anything. they want to survive and thrive the postal service has to find new markets. the postal service will not cut its way to greatness. it can grow its way to greatness and we are going to stand and help. [applause]

thank you, senator. the third member of the delegation, and again i just want to make no every member of the delegation is with us this evening and we are proud and thankful that you are all here. i would like to ask congressman welch to please come forward. [applause] >> thank you. we are going to be hearing from you very soon, but i have to tell you my office was literally went on the road used to stop in at the processing facility to come three come sometimes four times a week after a few years i actually got the tours in the back where all the magic happens. i really want to thank each and every one of you for the work that you've done for us.

the four corners, the street corners, norwich, you got everyone here. when i walked in and i shook hands saying how long have you worked here? 33 years, 28 years, 37 years, this has been your life and your life have been serving us and i want to tell you we appreciate it, we notice it. we know that you have been an anchor in the communities and each and every one of us and governor shumlin want to say thank you for your service we are going to keep doing it we won't get out of it that easy no matter what they say over their. [applause] if you on the job you've got to have that job and folks the

25 million people that are not in a job that want a job sometimes wonder why anyone should protect someone else's job when they don't have it. and you know, at the moment when we have to remember that we are all in this together it's something that our country is in danger of forgetting. the pressure israel on you. but you see folks coming in on christmas time trying to figure out whether they can afford the stance to send the package to a grandchild. you've been seeing that. it's tough for lots of folks. as we've got to be generous a spirit and we've got to be smart. you know, the postal service has been with us for 237 years. now we are talking about e-mail, electronic processing. but you think that there were

not huge changes that have to occur in those 237 years? from 1775 when benjamin franklin got this operation going up until now of course there were but of course the postal service adjusted it and why? yes, your jobs are worth saving but the united states postal service is worth saving. [applause] in our goal has to be how what do we save it, and altogether dewey save it, we do make the changes but when we have a plan it's not in the plan that we are going to exempt or take up this excessive burden of billions and billions of dollars of funding and over funding this isn't to avoid meeting your obligation, it's too over fund the retiree benefits and health care oncoming to impose and inflict its financial burden and make it impossible for us to be

successful and to make the slow and gradual change that needs to be made not just so that you can have your job which is extremely important but so that this community and white river junction, the state of vermont that we all know, this country in the united states of america, rural and urban will have a postal service for another 237 years and counting. thank you. [applause] >> thank you very much. at this point, i will invite anybody who would like to ask a question, make a comment i would ask that the line and from the podium back because the significant number of folks here tonight it's important that we

recognize the time. i will be instituting a two minute limit on those who wish to speak if you have an additional question beyond the when you ask i would ask that you go back to ensure that everybody has an opportunity to make a comment or ask a question also as part of the article i would ask that you identify yourself so that people recording your comments will have an accurate record. so please come in your name? >> i am bill kramer the local branch president for the union in white river junction vermont. [applause] and also a vermonter and i want to keep my job. keep the postal service in vermont. my question to you is what examples do you have of any business that to get away with their service that survived? how do you think by cutting your

service and delivery standards in the age where everyone wants something now that's going to save the postal service? i think the senators and congressmen and the governors were correct if you go from the one to three days service and if you go from five days to whenever on the third class service people are going to leave us. we are not going to have a postal service anymore and that is unfortunate. [applause] >> we appreciate your concerns on the service. is there a question, comment? >> let me rephrase that. how do you expect to save the service by cutting service? [applause] that's the reason we are here tonight we appreciate the comments as well only from the but from the delegation over here and that is what will

happen to make some decisions going forward is if we do consider exactly that one point will insure it is part of the record. >> let me ask all of the vermonter in the room tonight to what your postal service degraded? de watch as service? yes or no? >> no. >> thank you. [applause] thank you. >> next, please. >> in the northeast regional coordinator for the postal workers union. [applause] i'm in the microphone. >> [inaudible] >> i have the distinct pleasure and honor to represent the postal workers at the white river junction vermont and every time i come with the great centers sanders we have a great crowd. we get a program about 40 days ago we had 100 people in the public meeting and the message was very loud and very clear, keep the service in the united

states postal service the was the message. but as the senator said, we are here today because we are not being honest, we are your because we have to pay $5.5 billion every year before we start the year off. no company can survive that, not even the postal service. as i said, this isn't my first public meeting i come from maine and down to jersey and to the virgin islands and puerto rico so i've been through a lot of these. when you came up with a flat rate box that was a good idea. closing down these amts isn't a good idea. let's talk a service standards. the service standard is what predicates this entire process. it hasn't even been approved yet. yet we are predicting all of this information. we are predicting all of these moves, 252 studies all predicated on the standard that has not yet been approved. i think that this criminal.

in addition to that -- [applause] let's talk up the number of jobs new york city that's what this is is a shell game. this is a shell game. 46 jobs being lost because it looks good to the stakeholders and it looks good to the congressional people. but the real impact is the 200 jobs. one of my jobs as the union official of the region is to find jobs for other impacted employees. that's what i do. and i can assure you that we do not have 200 jobs available. in addition to that, we don't have 35,000 jobs available for all of these impacts the fate all of these that they could in fact cause. so i ask you please read into this. i thank the congressional delegation from vermont coming up with that piece of

legislation i think it helps you as much as it helps us. gives you more time to rethink. let's put a stop to this madness. let's put a stop to the madness and the change in the service standard as we say what other company says we are going to do a tv commercial and rather and say we will get the pizza to door house in 30 minutes you say we will get the pizza to your house and three to five days. it's nonsense, it's stupid, i know you are only the messenger is here tonight but we have to make sure that you listen to the public and we have to stop this madness. let's stop it right here in vermont. [applause] >> next, please. >> my name is amy and i am not a postal office person. i am a general person. i citizen of west hartford car and i came to speak because i had a small reservations i wanted to make available.

the state of vermont is now the most rural state in the nation. unlike other states, however, our population is almost evenly spread across the whole state. not like montana or idaho whether delete where there are hundreds of miles of land in the larger city. the state of vermont also has a total population smaller than the city of new york. forget the suburbs. in new york the distance between the processing centers is only a few minutes. the distance between burlington, white river and manchester is five hours. apart from the population exactly who is here? vermont is also one of the fastest aging states in the country and the poverty level is high meaning the ability to move around is more limited than the other states. even compared to new hampshire are massachusetts we don't have

easy access to public transportation, shopping centers or other conveniences. even the internet is so outside of many people's reach here. for some, the male is the only way to pay bills come contact friends or relatives or make purchases like medications as our leaders have said. for some it has dared lifetime to the world outside, and that contact needs to be timely and assured. another consideration is the companies that people do business with. i happen to know that many utilities charge extra to make payments on the phone or online and how many of us in vermont can afford that? with the loss of processing in white river junction male becomes unreliable a raging at a company on time as it is companies tell customers they didn't receive a payment on time when in fact it arrived, the

company processing could be the culprit and in vermont is known as the mail arrives in the state after one or maybe two days of the loss of the plant would make the mail so unreliable as to allow all kinds of the fiscal to cannery to occur with various companies who can claim it didn't get there on time. .. this affects our entire state. thank you.

[applause] ! enemas lawrence miller, secretary of the agency of commerce and community development for the state of vermont. one frame in question and then a couple of comments. the $8 million in savings, what is that of the total operating expense related to the effect to its facilities? >> i don't have that. the >> $89.7 not. mayor may not be allowed. it's hard to understand that the relative impact intelligence of your saving is that it doesn't seem like a lot. i appreciate your talking alert shippers. i come from is not manufacturing background. i've had to compete with overseas manufacturers and may not facilities and i know what that looks like and i understand the challenges you're facing. i understand looking with our shippers.

we have thousands of thousands of small business and home-based businesses that rely on the post office is for a meaningful portion of their income. the service change is not minor. i watch you think about what changing the cash cycle of businesses by a couple days implies. it implies moving our cash position is 7.5% to 10%. that's a meaningful financing component. this is not money that's going to come out of nowhere. a couple days of receivables in the state of your mind as they pack a lot more than 8 million bucks, probably 10 or 15 times that. and that is the result you're going to have. i think understanding the total system costs for all the users as well as for the service is important in judging where you ought to be cutting services or where'd you may need to reflect appropriately in charges. having lived a whole bunch of small business shipping, small

packages to the postal service because they did such a great job, you take away that delivery service. we're going to have to go back to the competition. it does not work. thank you. [applause] >> by name as mary ann will send. i work for a nonprofit organization here in labor junction. i'm also a resident of white river junction. the process of payroll under contract to a state of vermont for over 13,000 employees in the state of vermont to provide home care for individuals with disability. the delay -- the change of the standard to two to three or four days delivery will have an immediate and direct impact on all of those employees. those employees currently mail their timesheet into their solutions and expect to be paid within seven days.

without the ability to receive those timesheet on time, to put them in the mail on time and turn them around so employees can have their pay one week later on friday can be devastating for those of a 13,000 individuals and their families. in addition the delay of pay to those employees can have an adverse effect on individuals at risk in the state. they depend upon the care that their employees provide for them. those employees must be paid so that they can continue to provide that care and safeguard those vermonters who were oppressed. we process a number of 12,000 at 13,000 paychecks eat lunch. i was disappointed to learn that we were not included as part of the larger shipper conversation earlier today. we mail out over 30,000 pieces

of mail, 36,000 pieces of mail from the white river junction post office. the white river junction post office has done a valuable action fabulous job of prostheses in the mail and making sure -- [applause] at employees across the state of vermont are paid the wages that they are due. without the ability to have overnight or two day delivery, we will leave many vermonters that risk and many more who are at risk of losing their jobs. thank you. >> thank you very much. [applause] >> yes, hi, affects floyd, a resident here in the town of hartford. i came tonight to speak to the fact that i do not believe that the business case has completely

analyzed the geography situation that we have here in vermont in the same way that previous speakers have spoken about on the rural character of vermont and its needs. you also understand and don't take enough into account the value of the local employees who understand that the delivery area as the chosen point area zip codes than just the p.o. box is are so often the mail is misaddressed by people, but they look and no where people are trying to get to. they deal with it right away. now, if you have people doing that work down in andover, massachusetts, i'm sorry. they're not going to know the local geography. the business case probably inherently misstates the value of local employees appear. i would also point out that this area is the sixth-largest

micro-metropolitan area in the united states. in order to be a micro-metropolitan area, you have to basically be more than an hours drive away from any other senses to find metropolitan area. for more than an hour from burlington and manchester. we are more than an hour from springfield, massachusetts and therefore this area contains a pretty significant population, which if you mapped against the list of cities in the united states comes out to right around 200. now, can you pull up the potential network site, please and zoom in on the northeast? the fact of the matter is if you look at the potential network side, you'll see that the potential network has zero facilities in vermont and new hampshire. zero. could you enlarge the upper right corner.

so clearly, if you have mapped out the post office is better in massachusetts and andover and framingham and we share an springfield and made that on a map of vermont, that would be like brattleboro, springfield, windsor come away richard junction. the travel time between those places is relatively insignificant. the speaker earlier was talking about how difficult the travel time is around here and importance of the local delivery and so forth. i don't believe the business case has been correctly analyzed by the post office. finally what i want to say is that i went on to your website to understand how these business cases are put together. you can get all of the documents that show what needs to be filled out in order to prepare one of these business cases. but you know what, you cannot download the filled out forms

for this study that's been done around white river junction. in fact, you can download and read what has been sold out for any of the post offices here. and another thing is they are is no evidence that there is any investigation of consolidating into white river junction as opposed to eliminating white river junction and consolidating elsewhere. so, i say this material should be made available. we all should be able to understand your business case because right now it just is not up for me. and i thank you first time. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> my name is liz blom, an elected blister in the town of norwich. and just so you understand in maine and anywhere else, vermont was hit terribly hard by

hurricane or tropical storm irene. we have not recovered and we will work for years to recover. many of our towns have to add over $100,000 to our town budgets for town meeting in march to recover every year in spite of the great hope is gotten from our congressional delegation. so this is putting -- making the situation worse. you asked when you give your presentation what is the right thing to do. the right thing to do is to get rid of the requirement for the post office to prepay and overpaid benefits for 75 years and to work to pass reform legislation sponsored by vermont entire delegation and other

congresspeople and get other people, other congresspeople to sign onto the delegation. that should be the first order of congress this year would make it back to washington. many people have asked what kind of business plan is it to succeed by reducing services? it can't succeed this way. you need to expand services and change services to the united states postal service has been doing this for 237 years and it needs to continue to do so. >> thank you. >> i just want to say to me and many other people this is an undisguised plan to destroy our postal service guaranteed by the constitution and to privatize it. and i urge you to rethink your plan. [cheers and applause]

>> i am kilkenny, a resident of new hampshire and a clergy person with the south danbury new hampshire united church of christ come a small rural congregation. my congregation is like many small rural congregations all over the northeast and frankly the entire country in the rural parts of this country. our congregants depend on the u.s. postal service. many of our congregants depend on a postal service with reliable next day delivery in the areas where it is now being delivered. and in addition to i also run a small business or home based business, which as mentioned before. i absolutely depend on the u.s. postal service. my milk is processed in white

river junction and if anybody wants to know how people like me, depend in white river junction and the distribution, i know based on what is it because because i mail it what is going to get there the next day or the day after or the day after that. right now i can calculate what might mail is going out. from 7:30 to 7:59 at night, the people who depend on the next day delivery and what they can do. but i can see here today that we are talking about the wrong thing. if we are pinning wayfarer junction and arguing over who gets cut, lucas closed, it's the wrong argument. the argument should be the mail processing standards should not be reduced and i implore our congressional delegation. [applause] to say, this shall not stand.

this is clearly -- there is no question if you reduce service standards, what you are doing is someone that should me, attempting to destroy the service from within so it becomes a shadow of his former self. you are privatize it, privatize it and no longer is the u.s. postal service. as a clergy person, one of the things i learned to try to remember on a daily basis is bowsher are not bear false witness. i'm not saying anyone here is purposely lying. using talking points that have been given to you, but somebody is witnessing falsely when they say you can reduce service standard and you are going to come up with those numbers on there about all you'll say i'm trying to save and how you'll thrive. you cannot reduce standards and drive. it is a road to destruction of the u.s. postal service as we know it and it cannot stand. [cheers and applause]

the mac my name is susan clark and i live in a very per hampshire. have a strong connection to vermont. my former husband as a full-time employee at the plant and first of all he want to say that you can see that maybe they were a little harder working than your figures show from 46 hours or whatever it is. i know he's for different tours. they were very hard 24 hours a day. so i don't know where those figures came from. i just want to add that. i cannot care because i have a home-based business. half of the last 16 years and i have delivered sent to new london, new hampshire come a company called flash photo. i have to say and always praising the post office and telling them that they need to do more publicity about priority mail. first of all, yes, we are losing people doing e-mail, but on the other hand we are gaining

because all those orders being placed on the internet have to be shipped. so wise in the post office doing more with? i have to tell you my experiences i have a delivery sent to flash photo. the reason why an essential po boxes i look to a liar just sugar in greensboro north carolina and employ a lot of people that i know when it's shipped on thursday, i will have that in my hands on saturday. if it goes to ups, it is a week. the other side is this. our company sends out checks on friday afternoons. we have a small rural post office in newbury. i have my hand monday, tuesday. if this goes into effect on us when i'll see it and i'll be back the pain all my bills. the last thing is because i ha