Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Preserve and Fund the USPS

I'm a great fan of the US Postal Service (USPS). They do what they were chartered to do and what no one else will do, especially for the price. They deserve the funds for their employees, the carriers, their services, their needs and their facilities. And they deserve the funds to upgrade their techonology to be in the forefront of delivery services for the American people.

It's that simple. They are the best, and they don't deserve to be underfunded by Congress. They can't be self-supporting, everyone knows, so don't force them into something less of what we want and need from our Postal Service and their service. Remember, it's our Postal Service, not Congress'.

And now the talk to "improve" the USPS for cutting costs, like stopping Saturday service. Why? There's no real reason for doing so. And there's no real reason to cut hours of carriers or worse lay them off. They have families and can't be expected to bear the brunt of the costs.

And like cutting pay and benefits. The carriers, as a union, are under contract, so their pay and benefits have to be negotiated. Don't take that away. The other employees are civil service employees, and cutting their pay and benefits are frozen like all federal employees and like me, all retirees.

They too have families and shouldn't bear the brunt of the costs, especially when the wealthy are getting richer with lower taxes. You don't balance the budget on the backs of working families, and all of the USPS employees are working families. They don't deserve the Republicans' anger and hate.

I've used the Post Office all my life and still depend it for everything I mail, including packages, my tax return and other important mail (priority registered or tracking). They have only lost a few boxes, all in one shipment in 1987 which was suspected to be a contract shipping company problem (Arizona to Washington), and sadly I lost 8 years of personal field books.

Otherwise, they've been perfect, something I can't say about UPS or FedEx as I've had packages lost or stolen, or as they said "undelivered" or "delivered and customer lost" in the last 10 years. That said, I like UPS and FedEx, but rely on the USPS for my packages because I can use a generic box to avoid disclosing any contents of value.

Anyway, Congress owes this country a postal service which serves everyone everywhere and no one but the USPS has or will do that. We know that. So stop being political with them and keep their funding, or better add to their funding, to ensure their future for all of us.

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