The United States Postal Service has budget issues that could be rectified, as you’ll see in the email below. Doing away with the 75 year pension funding requirement would do wonders, but Republican hatred for unions and their goal to privatize America fuel their obstruction and destruction.

Meantime, the USPS is trying to pull in a little extra cash by introducing a collection of– wait for it– hip, “cutting edge” men’s clothing and accessories. Women’s wear is coming.

No, I’m not kidding. I can see it now, a giddy Ryan Seacrest on the Red Carpet calling out to Bradley Cooper, “Oo! Oo! Who are you wearing?” “Dude… USPS. Who else?”

L.A. Times:

The collection, to be called “Rain Heat & Snow,” will be made through a license agreement with Cleveland-based apparel firm Wahconah Group Inc. The Postal Service will not incur any cost and will collect royalties from sales, according to USPS spokesman Roy A. Betts.

The deal, which Betts said is “in the development and test phase,” will include outerwear, sportswear, casual wear, athletic wear and seasonal wear.

The clothing line, or “smart apparel,” will incorporate electronics like iPods that can be hooked up to, say, a jacket with volume controls on the sleeve.

Now if they can come up with a women’s line of eye-popping designer gowns with plunging necklines and backless backs plus ban-worthy see-through fabrics and thigh-high slits (equipped with discreet Internet hook-ups) and create a little runway buzz and tons of name-dropping, they may be on to something.

Fun fashion news aside, “It’s called the U.S. Postal Service because it is a service, not a corporation.” The following email came to me from CREDO Action. I got a similar one from Color of Change, so it’s good to see different groups are all over this:

The United States Postal Service announced last week that due to budget shortfalls, mail will no longer be delivered on Saturdays starting in August.

It’s true the post office faces financial challenges. But the financial problems are in large part a direct result of an onerous and ill-considered 2006 law called the “Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act” (PAEA) that mandates pre-funding the postal service retiree health care and pension benefits for 75 years — something that no other government agency or private company is forced to do.

The vast majority — 85% — of the budget red ink comes from this pre-funding mandate despite the fact that, according to the post office Inspector General, the pension is over-funded and reserves for retiree health care are far higher than the federal government as a whole, the military and almost all Fortune 1000 companies.¹

Tell Congress: Don’t let Republicans kill the post office. Click here to sign this petition automatically.

Even with the declining levels of “snail mail,” the post office still manages to deliver to every household in America a total of 563 million pieces of mail for an incredibly low cost. It does it efficiently, and without a penny of taxpayer money.²

But it’s that very self-sufficiency that drove Congressional Republicans to hatch a long-term plan to destroy the agency by starving it of the ability to maintain services. By forcing the USPS to save an outrageous and unneeded nest-egg, the agency has been increasingly removed from revenues which would help it keep pace with the innovation of FedEx and UPS.

As a result, the post office has closed branches in some of the most rural areas, where it was the only government-affiliated location for miles around.

Rural post offices in particular are important institutions. Closing them, especially in areas with little or no access to broadband internet service, could have a major impact on the communities they serve. And closing them won’t save much money.

Tell Congress: Don’t let Republicans kill the post office. Click here to sign this petition automatically.

Undermining public services is exactly what Republicans have been doing since the Reagan-era, by cutting off normal, healthy revenues for any reason they can find — even if it requires doing something that in any other circumstance would be branded as total lunacy. FedEx and UPS would never be required to meet the same savings requirements as the USPS.

By making the public believe that government services are underfunded and poorly managed, Republicans can force more cuts, and eventually privatize services altogether, handing over public goods to private corporations that enrich a select few at the expense of many.

And if the USPS dies, FedEx and UPS will have been delivered an entire, centuries-old industry at wholesale cost.

But all of this can be avoided by making simple and popular reforms to the postal service like those proposed last year in a bill by Delaware Senator Thomas Carper. His bill would have allowed the USPS to stretch out payments for future retirees for the next 40 years, while recouping $11 billion the government has overcharged the postal service.³

If Congress can’t get its act together and implement these necessary and simple reforms, the postal service will be forced to continue cutting staff and services. Legislators must act now to repeal the PAEA and put the post office back on equal footing.

Tell Congress: Don’t let Republicans kill the post office. Click the link below to sign this petition automatically.
http://act.credoaction.com/r/?r=6996482&p=usps_sat_delivery&id=55073-3929408-8oa51Ux&t=8

Thank you for standing up for the post office.

Jordan Krueger, Campaign Manager
CREDO Action from Working Assets