Saturday mail

A bipartisan group of senators have come up with a reasonable plan to keep the U.S. Postal Service solvent, while at the same time continuing six-day a week mail delivery.

This plan is important because eliminating a day of delivery would be devastating to many businesses who depend on the Postal Service to deliver their products or for sending out billings and receiving payments.

The Postal Service should back off of its threats to end Saturday delivery and to close important facilities, and Congress should pass a proposal like this one so the Postal Service can stay solvent.

This bill would revise a previous requirement that forced the Postal Service into prepaying $5.5 billion annually into the retirement system. This has put it in an untenable financial position as more Americans are using email and web-based systems and decreasing the amount of regular mail. Mail volume is down 22 percent since 2007.

Since volume is lower, the Postal Service does need to trim its workforce. This plan allows it to do so in a reasonable manner by providing funds to offer early retirement packages to employees.

The bipartisan plan has received widespread praise from trade groups that use the Postal Service.

Congress should fast-track this plan and the Postal Service should back off the draconian cuts it is planning in rural areas.