Bring the US Post Office Back To Health A few years back the GOP passed a very bad bill that has been bleeding the United States Postal System of over 5 billion dollars a year. The Postal Service wrongly gets a bad rap as a big money waster it is not - you also hear that the digital delivery of information hasn't helped, which is true to some extent. But the USPS is still the best deliverer of items that weigh more than a letter and by far the least expensive. But the biggest reason for its financial problems is a law called the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act (PAEA), passed in 2006 by a GOP-run Congress, with support from FEDEX and UPS. Under PAEA, USPS was forced to pay for their pension system 75 years in advance and set that system up within 10 years. In other words, it had to put aside billions of dollars to pay for the health benefits of employees it hasn't even hired yet. Is there an organization anywhere, private or public, required to do that? The bill was obviously AND ONLY created to weaken the USPS, so that FEDEX and UPS could profit. And so we see USPS announcing that they will be stopping overnight delivery soon. FEDEX and UPS will make billions more without USPS delivering overnight mail. Consumer advocate Ralph Nader argues that if PAEA had never been enacted, the postal service would actually be facing a $1.5 billion surplus today. Some say USPS would have much more. We certainly wouldnt see USPS closing thousands of offices and laying off thousands of workers and stopping overnight delivery that costs about half what FEDEX or UPS charge. A SOLUTION HR 1351 is a bipartisan piece of legislation that would undo the PAEA pension payment requirements now burdening the Postal Service. It has 193 co-sponsors, including a good number of Republicans, and is somewhere in the Congressional pipeline right now, but it's unknown if House leaders will clear a path for debate and a vote. PLEASE TAKE ACTION Please call the Capitol Switchboard at 202-224-3121 and ask to be connected to your Congressperson and then your two Senators and urge them to vote for HR1351. And pass this on, please!
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