Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-OR) has introduced legislation to try to save the US Postal Service from its incipient bankruptcy, and he is asking for the public to help him pass it.

DeFazio’s bill would repeal the needless requirement — one no other business or entity must face — that the Postal Service pre-fund 75 years’ worth of employee health benefits. That requirement has hugely contributed to the USPS defaulting for the first and then second time in its history last year. Analysis from 2012 estimated that the USPS would have a $1.5 billion surplus without the benefit requirement.

But DeFazio recognizes that facts alone will not influence his colleagues to take up and pass the legislation, so he has also turned to the White House’s petition platform, We The People, to petition President Obama to take a stand against the health benefit requirement. He also points out many of the other flaws in how Congress has managed the postal service:

About 80% of USPS financial losses since 2007 are due to a Congressional mandate to prefund 75 years of future retiree health benefits over 10 years. In 2012 USPS lost a record $15.9 billion, but $11.1 billion of that loss went to prefund healthcare. This must change.

USPS shouldn’t move to 5-day delivery. This would only save 3%, risk further revenue losses, and slow mail delivery.

USPS needs to re-establish overnight delivery standards to ensure the timely delivery of mail and prevent the closure of mail plants.

USPS needs to generate more revenue by ending a 2006 ban prohibiting USPS from offering new products and services.

Does the Administration support HR 630 and S 316 to make these changes, save American jobs, and allow USPS to remain competitive?

Some conservatives have made the argument that having a national postal service is frivolous in the age of private delivery companies and email, but that ignores the fact that rural Americans don’t enjoy those services with the same regularity that urban and suburban Amercians do. For the elderly and for rural Americans, closed post offices and slowed delivery mean less consistent communication. It can also mean more economic inequality.

On Thursday, Congress voted against allowing the U.S. Postal Service to cut its delivery down to five days a week, forcing the organization to keep delivering mail on Saturdays. This will drive the USPS into looming bankruptcy — already foisted upon the USPS by Congress itself — even faster.

In 2006, Congress passed the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act, mandating that the USPS front the money for 75 years of employee retirement benefits — a requirement no other public or private institution faces.

In trying to scrape up money for the health care benefits of kids who haven’t even graduated high school yet, the USPS has spiraled into near-bankruptcy. Without the benefit requirement, a July 2012 analysis showed, the USPS would have a $1.5 billion surplus. Instead, it’s billions of dollars in the red.

Dropping Saturday delivery was supposed to be its way of trying to fight these congressionally-imposed deficits. But yesterday, Congress rejected the five-day proposal, roundly agreeing that the USPS must keep its service at six days a week, even though it can hardly afford to do so.

Now, the USPS is looking for a workaround to see if it can cut back on first-class mail, magazine, and direct mail delivery while still meeting Congress’s six-day mandate.

Though the Postal Service is an independent agency, a legal opinion by the Government Accountability Office found that it needs Congressional approval to change its budget or delivery schedule.

Congress has apparently not considered that postal access matters, particularly to rural Americans. Members of Congress seem content to let the USPS flounder, despite the fact that it would take just one simple step to fix the USPS’s budget problems: repealing the benefit requirement. It doesn’t look like Congress will let that happen any time soon.

The U.S. Postal Service announced on Wednesday that it will discontinue first class Saturday mail delivery, marking another milestone in the decline of the once-ubiquitous government service. But it isn’t a switch to online mail that’s causing the postal demise — it’s Congress.

Under the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act, Congress has for years forced the USPS to pre-fund 75 years’ worth of health benefits for its employees in retirement, a requirement not made of any other public or private institution. That means that the Postal Service is footing the bill for employees it hasn’t even hired yet.

The USPS doesn’t actually receive money from the government, but still needs Congressional approval to make any changes to its structure. An analysis in July showed that the USPS, without its benefit requirement, would have a $1.5 billion surplus.

But Congress has repeatedly failed to address the issue. Last year, the Postal Service defaulted on a pension fund payment for the first — and then second — time in its history, and political infighting stopped Congress from bringing any remedy to the floor.

Postal access is, ultimately, a rights issue for rural Americans; since they live in areas where internet coverage is inconsistent, post office closures and slowed-down delivery can mean big limitations on communication. A lack of access to postal services can lead to a growth in economic inequality. The new rules for Saturday delivery, set to take effect on August 1, 2013, will continue delivery of packages, but discontinue basic first-class mail.

The United States Postal Service last year defaulted on a payment into its pension fund for the first time in its history. It then defaulted on a second payment later in the year, while posting record losses.

The Postal Service is in such dire financial straits because, unlike any other agency or private business, it is required by Congress to pre-fund 75 years worth of pension benefits. So USPS is paying for the pensions of employees it has not even hired yet. And while Congress could easily fix the problem, House Republicans last year couldn’t even bother to bring the matter up for a vote:

The old Congress, bogged down by disagreements between lawmakers from rural and urban districts and distracted by fiscal policy fights, has not been able to agree on legislation to overhaul the struggling agency.

A bipartisan bill that passed the Democratic-led Senate last year would have ended Saturday mail delivery and eased its benefit payment obligations.

But the Republican-led House of Representatives, which had advocated for aggressive post office closures, never voted on a postal bill.

Last year, Congress managed to rename 60 post office branches, while doing nothing to alleviate the USPS’ nonsensical requirements. Meanwhile, the alternative solution — closing post office branches — hits America’s poorest communities the most.

The United States Postal Service reported a $15.9 billion dollar loss for the 2012 fiscal year, calling into question the national mail service’s continued viability absent Congressional action. The loss was the largest in USPS history and roughly three times the previous year’s losses, prompting alarm from Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe:

We cannot sustain large losses indefinitely. Major defaults are unsettling..It’s critical that Congress do its part and pass comprehensive legislation before they adjourn this year to move the Postal Service further down the path toward financial health.

The Congressional action required to fix the service is exceedingly simple — all it has to do is fix a problem entirely of its own making. The Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006 requires the USPS to “prefund” retirement benefits for 75 years, something that a) is not required of any other federal agency or private corporation and b) forces the USPS to set aside vast quantities of money.

Without this mandate, the USPS would be self-sustaining. Postal workers have gone on hunger strikes to protest Congressional unwillingness to make this simple fix, a version of which passed the Senate but languished in the House.

Were the USPS to collapse, it would hit poor Americans the hardest.

Last summer, the House of Representatives set aside arduous debt ceiling negotiations to focus on a longstanding congressional pastime: renaming post offices.

Today, just days before legislators will head home or back to the campaign trail for the August recess, the United States Postal Service will default — for the first time in history — on a $5.5 billion payment meant to fund future retirees’ benefits.

During the 112th Congress, the House has introduced 60 bills to rename post offices. In fact, of the 151 laws produced by this Congress, 17 percent have been to rename post offices. But not one bill geared towards salvaging the Postal Service has reached the floor, and the USPS desperately needs Congressional action to stay solvent.

The Postal Service does not receive taxpayer dollars for operational costs, but is nonetheless under congressional control. The USPS is legally obligated to deliver mail to every single house in the country, including in remote areas where UPS and FedEx won’t venture. And while other private delivery companies have continued to grow and diversify, Congress has stymied the Postal Service from directly competing.

Moreover, a Republican-led 2006 Congress passed the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act (PAEA), an unprecedented piece of legislation that requires the USPS to prefund its pension benefits for 75 years through the $5.5 billion annual payment. Congress has turned a blind eye here, allowing offices to close and hundreds of thousands of jobs to be lost instead of addressing the pension payments.

Without the one-of-a-kind prefund program, estimates show the USPS would have a $1.5 billion surplus instead of a $20 billion shortfall. Republicans have nonetheless responded to this manufactured crisis by pushing for legislation that would layoff workers.

– Steven Perlberg

In 2006, the Republican-led Congress passed an unnecessary law requiring the United States Postal Service to prefund its pension benefits for 75 years through a $5.5 billion annual payment. The Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006 (PAEA) is the only one of its kind for a government agency. On August 1st of this year, the Post Office will likely default for the first time in its history on its 2011 pension payment. If Congress does not act, it will also default on its 2012 payment due September 30th.

The requirement has drastically harmed the functions of the agency, which is used by almost every American. In July, USPS began closing offices around the country to meet the annual payment. By the time current downsizing plans are completed in 2014, Americans will see 229 processing plants closed and 28,000 jobs lost. In June, ten USPS employees launched a multi-day hunger strike to protest the cuts.

Without the pension payment, USPS would have a $1.5 billion surplus instead of a $20 billion shortfall. “[T]hese ongoing liquidity issues unnecessarily undermine confidence in the viability of the Postal Service among our customers,” said USPS spokesman David Partenheimer.

Postal Service cuts also threaten to increase economic inequality. A Reuters analysis released in February found that America’s poorest communities “stand to suffer most if the struggling agency moves ahead with plans to shutter thousands of post offices.”

A vast majority of postal offices under consideration for closure are located in rural areas, where poverty rates are higher than the national average. Nearly 90 percent of Americans without broadband access live in rural areas, making USPS cuts especially harmful to the pocketbooks of rural Americans.

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Ten current and former employees of the United States Postal Service (USPS) today launched a multi-day hunger strike to protest branch closures and layoffs that are supposedly meant to address the service’s shortfalls. At the center of the protest is a law passed by Congress that is responsible for the Postal Service’s ongoing budget problems.

The USPS will start closing 48 mail processing plants in July, and by the time current plans are completed in 2014, it will have closed or consolidated 229 plants, eliminating 28,00 jobs in the process. Those cuts likely wouldn’t have to take place, however, if Congress reversed a law it passed in 2006 mandating that the USPS prefund its pension benefits for 75 years, costing the postal service billions of dollars a year, as CNN Money notes:

They also want Congress to eliminate a mandate that has been a major financial drag on the service — annual $5.5 billion payments to prefund health care benefits for future retirees. The strikers say say eliminating the mandate would solve the Postal Service’s financial problems.

“That payment is causing great hardship to the Postal Service,” said Nannette Corley, a Maryland mail clerk for the past 19 years who is taking unpaid leave to join the hunger strike. “We are the people. What is it that Congress wants us to do? Starve and make everybody homeless?”

Under the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006 (PAEA), which was passed by a Republican-led Congress in 2006, the Postal Service is forced to prefund its retiree pension and health programs for the next 75 years in just a 10-year window. That’s a requirement that doesn’t exist for any other government agency or private corporation, and without it, USPS would actually face a $1.5 billion surplus instead of a $20 billion shortfall.

Massachusetts Rep. Steven Lynch (D) introduced bipartisan legislation in April 2011 that would allow USPS to pay down its debts instead of prefunding the pension plan, but it never even saw a vote in committee.