FedEx’s ghost-writers over at BrownBailout.com issued a breathless news release yesterday titled “Senate Extends FAA Funding Authorization; Does Not Contain UPS Bailout Provision,” and which began:
“The U.S. Senate has voted to extend funding authorization for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) until March 31, 2010. The extension legislation does not contain the anti-competitive UPS bailout provision that was written into the original House bill.”
1.) This wasn’t exactly earth-shattering news. The Senate has been kicking this can down the road for some time now, hell-bent as it is on destroying the nation’s health care system before tackling any of the nation’s other priorities.
In fact, today’s extension was just an extension of an earlier extension.
2.) It’s not a “UPS Bailout Provision.” It’s a provision to remove an anti-competitive corporate welfare subsidy for FedEx. The provision would simply place FedEx Express’s express delivery drivers under the same labor law as every other express delivery driver in the country.
FedEx’s BS continued:
“UPS is lobbying heavily for the inclusion of a special interest provision that would benefit only one company, UPS, by fundamentally changing the labor law governing its main competitor, FedEx Express. The bailout provision, if passed, could impact the price, access and reliability of our overnight delivery system.”
In reality, the news release could have/should have read:
“FedEx is lobbying against the inclusion of a provision that would eliminate a special interest benefit enjoyed by only one company, FedEX, by equitably changing the labor law to place FedEx’s drivers under the same law as the drivers of its main competitor, UPS. The corporate welfare subsidy removal provision, if passed, would level the playing field for all overnight delivery providers.”
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: When you have to misrepresent the facts and resort to misleading propaganda to argue your point, you probably have a very weak case. In other words: see FedEx.