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Jail time for Lance? Thoughts peeps?

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Oct 8, 2012
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Love the Scenery said:
Hmmm ...

I was mistaken. US Postal Service is a government agency, but it gets its budget from its own revenue streams; according to Wikipedia it has not received taxpayer subsidies since the 1980s, so technically speaking Armstrong did not steal directly from the taxpayer.

Confirmed by a 2010 budget from the US Postal Service, see page 4, "0 tax dollars received for operating the Postal Service."

http://web.archive.org/web/20100728...tegicplanning/_pdf/PostalFacts_03_17_2010.pdf

Thus, Armstrong is off the hook for stealing from the taxpayer, though he did defraud the US Postal Service, which is a government agency, and did so in an amount over $40 million. Now if only we knew what the US Postal subsidy level was for 1998-2000, we'd have complete numbers.


Nope. Armstrong is definitely not off the hook from stealing from the taxpayer. US Postal Service is a governmental agency which derives its funds directly from taxes.
 
May 6, 2010
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Big Daddy said:
Nope. Armstrong is definitely not off the hook from stealing from the taxpayer. US Postal Service is a governmental agency which derives its funds directly from taxes.

Uuuummm.... No, it doesn't. It derives its funds from charging customers for its services. It doesn't receive any funds directly from taxes. If it does, I'd sure like it if you showed me some evidence, because my own investigation of the US Postal Service budget shows that they get 0 dollars from taxes and all their revenue from charging for their services.
 
Oct 8, 2012
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Love the Scenery said:
Uuuummm.... No, it doesn't. It derives its funds from charging customers for its services. It doesn't receive any funds directly from taxes. If it does, I'd sure like it if you showed me some evidence, because my own investigation of the US Postal Service budget shows that they get 0 dollars from taxes and all their revenue from charging for their services.



Uhh, yes it does. Taxes, taxes, taxes, from people, people, people. That also get charged for stamps, stamps, stamps.
 
I'm as glad as the next one that Pharmweak (PW) has been busted for doping. But I knew my taxpayer comment would stir a hornets nest. As far as I know, PW has not committed a crime. He did not steal anything, or commit some other crime. If he had he'd have his *** dragged in and tried for that too. There may be suspicion of crimes, but there would have to be some proof to make it stick. Now if he did commit some crime and there's proof, bust him.
 
When was the last time the US Postal Service was solvent? I know they've been running deficits of several billions of dollars annually for the last few years. Presumably they still have to pay their employees and pay to operate delivery vans and aeroplanes. If they don't create the revenue, what is its source?
 
May 6, 2010
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Big Daddy said:
Uhh, yes it does. Taxes, taxes, taxes, from people, people, people. That also get charged for stamps, stamps, stamps.

Look people. I just did my online research and I just posted a US Postal Service budget showing 68 billion dollars in revenue in 2009 and 0 tax dollars received for operating the Postal Service. It's on page 4:

http://web.archive.org/web/20100728...tegicplanning/_pdf/PostalFacts_03_17_2010.pdf

Big Daddy, I asked you for EVIDENCE. Do you have a US Postal Service budget showing them using tax revenues? If so, post it. If you're just talking pure unsupported opinion, then your words are meaningless. We are trying to find out exactly what Armstrong did or didn't do. He's done enough bad stuff that we don't need to make stuff up. I was trying to find out HOW MUCH taxpayer money he took, and I looked up the Postal Service budget, and found out that the USPS doesn't use tax money. I posted my evidence. If you have different and better evidence, please post it.
 
May 6, 2010
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StyrbjornSterki said:
When was the last time the US Postal Service was solvent? I know they've been running deficits of several billions of dollars annually for the last few years. Presumably they still have to pay their employees and pay to operate delivery vans and aeroplanes. If they don't create the revenue, what is its source?

As far as I can tell, their revenue comes from selling their services, i.e. packages, letters, mass mailings, self-addressed stamped envelopes, etc.

According to their own fact sheet they handled 177 billion pieces of mail in 2009 so a revenue of 68 billion dollars is not strange. Again, if any of you can find actual evidence that the US Postal Service gets tax $$$ please post it, because without that evidence, Armstrong is not guilty of stealing from the taxpayer.
 
Oct 8, 2012
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Love the Scenery said:
Look people. I just did my online research and I just posted a US Postal Service budget showing 68 billion dollars in revenue in 2009 and 0 tax dollars received for operating the Postal Service. It's on page 4:

http://web.archive.org/web/20100728...tegicplanning/_pdf/PostalFacts_03_17_2010.pdf

Big Daddy, I asked you for EVIDENCE. Do you have a US Postal Service budget showing them using tax revenues? If so, post it. If you're just talking pure unsupported opinion, then your words are meaningless. We are trying to find out exactly what Armstrong did or didn't do. He's done enough bad stuff that we don't need to make stuff up. I was trying to find out HOW MUCH taxpayer money he took, and I looked up the Postal Service budget, and found out that the USPS doesn't use tax money. I posted my evidence. If you have different and better evidence, please post it.




Dear everybody,
The user, Love the Scenery, asked me for evidence that US Postal Service was funded by taxpayer money. I publicly acknowledge that I did not give him a link to refute his earlier claim that they only derive money from stamps and mailing people's stuff and not from the taxpayers. So there. You win that argument 'Love the Scenery'.

Ok,now that outta the way. Yep. Armstrong deserves to be in jail.
 
Oct 12, 2012
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Love the Scenery said:
As far as I can tell, their revenue comes from selling their services, i.e. packages, letters, mass mailings, self-addressed stamped envelopes, etc....

[therefore] Armstrong is not guilty of stealing from the taxpayer.

No, not quite. You are confusing revenue with beneficial ownership. They are two different things.

Yes, USPS makes its revenue from fees for services, and does not presently need a line-item appropriation from the US Treasury. But the minute that customer money crosses the counter, it becomes funds owned by the US Postal Service, which is in turn 100% owned by the US government, i.e., by us, the citizens.

The public trust issue therefore does not derive from whether the USPS is or is not subsidized by the public treasury. It arises from the fact that the USPS and all its assets and controlled funds, whatever their source, are beneficially owned by the government, and thus by us, the citizens. The issue is that he fraudulently violated a contract with the US government, and therefore defrauded us, the citizens of the US.

Now, I imagine for any number of practical reasons this fraud might be difficult to prosecute. But where the USPS gets its revenue has no bearing on the question. All that matters that when you enter into a contract with USPS your counterparty is the citizens of the US.
 
May 6, 2010
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Bandoblue said:
No, not quite. You are confusing revenue with beneficial ownership. They are two different things.

Yes, USPS makes its revenue from fees for services, and does not presently need a line-item appropriation from the US Treasury. But the minute that customer money crosses the counter, it becomes funds owned by the US Postal Service, which is in turn 100% owned by the US government, i.e., by us, the citizens.

The public trust issue therefore does not derive from whether the USPS is or is not subsidized by the public treasury. It arises from the fact that the USPS and all its assets and controlled funds, whatever their source, are beneficially owned by the government, and thus by us, the citizens. The issue is that he fraudulently violated a contract with the US government, and therefore defrauded us, the citizens of the US.

Now, I imagine for any number of practical reasons this fraud might be difficult to prosecute. But where the USPS gets its revenue has no bearing on the question. All that matters that when you enter into a contract with USPS your counterparty is the citizens of the US.

Bandoblue, thanks for the reply. I've been trying to figure this out for the past 24 hours. I don't want to go around saying "Armstrong ripped off the taxpayers" if it's not technically accurate. The case being as you described, however, is even better; I was thinking we would have to calculate what percentage of the USPS budget is taxpayer money, multiply that by the total of the USPS sponsorship from 1998-2004, and that would be the amount he ripped us off.

What I am seeing on forums, still, is possible Lance astroturfers repeating the old saw about "taxpayer money spent on the investigation," and I haven't (up to now) seen people countering with the fact that Armstrong took 50 million dollars or so from the taxpayers, and spent it at least in part on dope. When people hear that they understand it quickly, and soon change their minds about Armstrong. The Ferrari receipts are a great help in that sense, because they clearly show Armstrong spending big money on doping.

Anyway ... thanks for the clarification! If you or anyone else can find out the amount of the USPS sponsorship for 1998-2000, please post it or PM me. I would like to have an exact figure to mention when it comes up in conversation. So far I have 39.1 million for 2001-2004, I reckon the budget was lower in 98 and 99 before the TDF wins, but probably quite high in 2000. I would say 50 million dollars is a safe figure, but I sure would like exact numbers.

It's a huge amount of money and I get the impression that US attorney Birotte's career is, if not over, at least in big trouble.
 
Oct 12, 2012
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Love the Scenery said:
Bandoblue, thanks for the reply.

Glad it helped.

I think the momentary confusion comes from the slang phase "the taxpayers."

We all know what we mean more or less when we use the phrase as convenient shorthand--we mean the American people.

But in this case we really do want to be more precise--it's US citizens, not US taxpayers (a smaller group), who are the victims. Whether we in fact pay US income tax or not (some are too poor, or too old, as the current political campaign has touched on) USPS money is still ours collectively as citizens.

Here's the best I can do for you on the money trail

http://sports.espn.go.com/oly/cycling/news/story?id=6019436
 
Mar 31, 2010
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broken chain said:
Lance can beat all this and win the hearts of Americans back by giving a schmaltzy Richard Nixon type speech.
The one his advisors said would be political suicide.
He talked about his dog and wife and boring family life.
Americans ate it up and elected him.:eek:

this isn't 1970 anymore
 
May 6, 2010
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Bandoblue said:
Glad it helped.

I think the momentary confusion comes from the slang phase "the taxpayers."

We all know what we mean more or less when we use the phrase as convenient shorthand--we mean the American people.

But in this case we really do want to be more precise--it's US citizens, not US taxpayers (a smaller group), who are the victims. Whether we in fact pay US income tax or not (some are too poor, or too old, as the current political campaign has touched on) USPS money is still ours collectively as citizens.

Here's the best I can do for you on the money trail

http://sports.espn.go.com/oly/cycling/news/story?id=6019436

Thanks so much Bandoblue, that article has more details than the one I had and your comments on the distinction between taxpayers and citizens is very useful. I just know that if I start posting on this subject someone is going to challenge me and I want to have all the facts at my disposal.

So, we've got the following:
1998 $2 million (http://assets.espn.go.com/i/mag/blog/2011/thefile/armstrong/contract96_big.jpg)
1999 Exact quantity unknown, but at least $2 million since the sponsorship amount was to go up each year
2000 $3.3 million
2001 $6.1 million
2002 $7.61 million
2003 $8.23 million
2004 $8.66 million
plus $400 thousand for the junior program

Total taken from the US Postal Service (public money) by Lance Armstrong:
AT LEAST
US$38.3 million

Obviously this is far more than the Feds and USADA combined spent on the investigations. I think this makes a good, accurate counter-argument against anyone who rails about "wasting taxpayers' money." Armstrong took the US Postal Service for $40 million and as we now know spent at least $1 million of it paying Michele Ferrari. Now THAT'S a waste of public funds, with the postal service in a major existential crisis.
 
May 6, 2010
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Along these lines, this article just came out in the NY Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/13/s...al-issues-for-lance-armstrong.html?ref=sports

Near the bottom of the first page, the article uses "taxpayer dollars" to describe the Floyd Landis whistlebower lawsuit:

"An inquiry by the Department of Justice, however, is believed to be continuing. Floyd Landis, one of Armstrong’s former teammates, filed a federal whistle-blower lawsuit charging that Armstrong and the Postal Service team management defrauded the government by using taxpayer dollars to finance the squad’s doping program."

So I guess here the term "taxpayer dollars," as you imply, is a sort of slang or shorthand for public or government moneys of any sort, including US Postal Service money. I'm glad to have learned this today.
 
May 26, 2010
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Love the Scenery said:
Thanks so much Bandoblue, that article has more details than the one I had and your comments on the distinction between taxpayers and citizens is very useful. I just know that if I start posting on this subject someone is going to challenge me and I want to have all the facts at my disposal.

So, we've got the following:
1998 $2 million (http://assets.espn.go.com/i/mag/blog/2011/thefile/armstrong/contract96_big.jpg)
1999 Exact quantity unknown, but at least $2 million since the sponsorship amount was to go up each year
2000 $3.3 million
2001 $6.1 million
2002 $7.61 million
2003 $8.23 million
2004 $8.66 million
plus $400 thousand for the junior program

Total taken from the US Postal Service (public money) by Lance Armstrong:
AT LEAST
US$38.3 million

Obviously this is far more than the Feds and USADA combined spent on the investigations. I think this makes a good, accurate counter-argument against anyone who rails about "wasting taxpayers' money." Armstrong took the US Postal Service for $40 million and as we now know spent at least $1 million of it paying Michele Ferrari. Now THAT'S a waste of public funds, with the postal service in a major existential crisis.

Obviuosly you have a link for how much money was spent on investigations?
 
Oct 2, 2012
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Love the Scenery said:
T
Total taken from the US Postal Service (public money) by Lance Armstrong:
AT LEAST US$38.3 million

'Taken from' is a loaded phrase that is not accurate.

You could spin it to say 'Total given to Lance Armstrong by the US Postal Service for marketing the USPS brand: $38.3 million.'

Another distinction you need to clarify is where the money to pay for dope and Ferrari came from. If it came directly from the USPS budget, that's a problem. If it came out of Lance's personal accounts, then that's a different story. Lance had numerous income streams beyond his USPS salary. Besides, your employer isn't responsible for how you spend your paycheck.
 
Oct 25, 2010
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Big Daddy said:
Nope. Armstrong is definitely not off the hook from stealing from the taxpayer. US Postal Service is a governmental agency which derives its funds directly from taxes.
Let me clear this up for you as I work for USPS...we get no tax money, no money from the federal government...all revenue comes from what folks put in when they use service...if you consider the price of a stamp a tax, then you are taxed every time you buy anything, anywhere...Armstrong and his fellow crooks got a lil over 30 million...the contractual deal they made was that it had to be an entirely drug free team...so yeah, he ought to go to jail for the fraud concerning that alone...he should be going to jail, but I highly doubt he will via fraud or anything else...the cancer shield ect...
 
May 26, 2010
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David Walsh tweets something relevant to this thread..

David Walsh ‏@DavidWalshST

That's small potatoes compared to what LA would face if US Justice Department proceeds with case based on damage done to US Postal Service.

That Justice Department are interested clear from Mike Pugliese sitting on USADA interviews of riders.How has this scandal not damaged USPS?
 

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