Monday, July 09, 2012

I Suppose We Have To Save Even Idiots

Did I tell you that this spring they cut an hour or so off my route? And that after the snow melted, I could actually do my route in eight hours or less? Or that tomorrow, they're putting it all back on my route, plus five more stops?
Did I tell you that the mailman who works right next to me (and that used to be my mailman) had a stroke a couple of years ago, and that a few weeks ago he had a seizure landing him back in the ICU with a respirator? And that he couldn't talk, so they gave him a whiteboard and a marker so he could write? And that his arms just flopped around, so that he was writing gibberish? And that whatever he wrote made more sense than the line of travel they "proposed" for my route. It's a proposal, if a shotgun wedding is a marriage made in heaven. Because the line of travel that I just saw today for the first time, takes effect tomorrow.

So, having said all that, I have a favor to ask. You know this job I'm embarrassed to have, working for idiots? Can you help me save it, and the Postal Service? Darrel Issa, car thief, stolen valor liar, and Congressman from California, has a plan to reform the Postal Service. It's called H.R. 2309, "for want of a more scathing term."
Here are some bullet points for when you call your Congressperson at 888-863-6103:

► H.R. 2309 would needlessly eliminate Saturday delivery, the USPS’ largest competitive advantage, to save a fraction of its annual operating budget. This senseless cut would damage millions of small businesses and result in major volume losses that have not been accounted for.

► H.R. 2309 would eliminate 90 percent of all door-to-door home and business delivery—a cut that is unpopular among the millions of Americans who currently receive such delivery. This change alone would hurt advertising mailers, small-business mailings, and eBay and Amazon deliveries, just to name a few—not to mention the inconvenience of having to leave a residence or place of business to retrieve mail from a cluster box location.

► H.R. 2309 would downsize the USPS’ invaluable networks by closing thousands of post offices and mail-processing plants in a haphazard manner, which would result in massive delays in mail processing and simply destroy the current USPS service standards that customers have come to rely on.

► Perhaps worst of all, H.R. 2309 would do nothing to reduce the crushing annual payments to pre-fund future retiree health benefits—payments that no other agency or business must make—despite the fact that the retiree health benefit fund already has nearly $45 billion in it, enough money to cover health care costs for future retirees for decades to come. As a matter of fact, the bill actually increases the congressionally mandated payments to the fund, which would all but guarantee a collapse of the Postal Service in the future.

We need to make sure every member of Congress receives this message loud and clear to ensure that H.R. 2309 never makes it to the floor. Please help to protect the future of the Postal Service by calling your representative at 888-863-6103 and by urging your co-workers, family members and friends to do the same.

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