Hey, GOP, leave my Post Office alone!

I have always appreciated the United States Postal Service because they provide services to everyone. It doesn’t matter who your relatives are, it doesn’t matter how much money you have, and until recently, it didn’t matter where you lived. Now because of budget matters, the Post Office wants to close offices in rural towns, like Damar.
I personally don’t care if the Post Office turns a profit, I feel it is important to have post offices and postal workers in our small towns. The Coast Guard and the FBI have important jobs, too, but we don’t worry that they don’t make a profit. But Saturday delivery and rural Post Offices could go away because of red ink at the USPS.
This is our first taste of austerity. More is to come if the budget cutters and corporate lackeys have their way. If you marked your ballot for Tim Huelskamp or Jerry Moran, this is what you voted for. “We have to have smaller government”, “we need less Federal intrusion into our lives”, “government is the problem.” If we govern the country according to these bumper sticker sayings, we will end up with fewer government services and more government indifference toward you, your family, and your community. Unfortunately, Damar gets to be one of the first towns to find this out.
Austerity will hit rural people first, followed by old people, poor people and then children. (These are the groups with the fewest votes and the least money with which to buy influence). I am assuming many of you are like me and have family members who fit in more than one of these groups. We have to look out.
To be fair, Sen. Moran has made an exception to the “deficits will ruin America” theme, and has cosponsored a bill in the Senate that would prevent the USPS from closing any post office that is more than 10 miles from the nearest other post office. (S 1668) I don’t know if this could get through Congress in time to save Damar, but if adopted, it could save post offices in other Western Kansas towns.
The Senate bill would not, however, solve the Post Office’s budget problems that bother so many in Washington. This is where Rep. Huelskamp could help, if he so desires, by backing certain legislation. There is a bill in the House (HR 1351) that would correct a budget problem that is driving the USPS books into the red. In 2006 Congress passed a bill that forced the Post Office to pay the next 75 years of retirees pensions in only 10 years. The Coast Guard, the FBI, nobody else does this. This has amounted to a $5.5 billion per year expense. Without this artificial expense on the books the USPS would show a profit and there would be less of a push to close small post offices in rural areas.
As of today, HR 1351 has 226 cosponsors, nearly enough to force it onto the floor for a vote. As I see it, Rep. Huelskamp has a choice; is he going to be a politician and stick to Tea Party dogma or is he going to be a representative by cosponsoring the bill and doing the right thing for Damar and the rest of Western Kansas?
AB Campbell
(Published in the Hays Daily News)