Postal Service to stop delivering mail on Saturdays
10:12a.m. EST February 6, 2013
... Mail will not be scheduled for collection from blue collection boxes on Saturday. Post Offices now open on Saturdays would remain open under the plan, and mail would be delivered to post office boxes. Deposited mail would be processed on Monday ...
The agency's biggest problem - and the majority of the red ink in 2012 - was not due to reduced mail flow but rather to mounting mandatory costs for future retiree health benefits, which made up $11.1 billion of the losses. Without that and other related labor expenses, the mail agency sustained an operating loss of $2.4 billion, lower than the previous year.
The health payments are a requirement imposed by Congress in 2006 that the post office set aside $55 billion in an account to cover future medical costs for retirees. The idea was to put $5.5 billion a year into the account for 10 years. That's $5.5 billion the post office doesn't have.
No other government agency is required to make such a payment for future medical benefits. Postal authorities wanted Congress to address the issue last year, but lawmakers finished their session without getting it done. So officials are moving ahead to accelerate their own plan for cost-cutting ...
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/02/06/us-postal-service-delivery-mail-saturdays/1895277/
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Currently:
Signatures needed by February 21, 2013 to reach goal of 100,000 - 96,905
Total signatures on this petition - 3,095
100,000 signatures needed by February 21, 2013 -Please add your signature, put link on your Facebook, spread the word, etc.
The Postal Service is not a federal agency. It does not cost taxpayers a dollar. It loses money only because Congress mandates that it do so.
What it is is a miracle of high technology and human touch. It delivers to more than 151 million addresses every day but Sunday. It's what binds us together as a nation.
If Congress does not take action soon, the Post Office will have only enough money to pay its bills through October. After that, it will go bankrupt.
Before it’s too late, we urge Congress to free the Post Office from its congressionally mandated obligations and allow it to raise additional revenue so that it can become self-sustaining once again.
K & R
