Dear MoveOn member,

The motto of the United States Postal Service is, "Neither snow nor rain
nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion
of their appointed rounds."^1 What could stop them? Donald Trump and the
Republican Party.

Last week, the Postmaster General warned that the Postal Service would run
out of money by October because of a decline in the volume of mail shipped
due to the coronavirus pandemic, which compounds the financial burdens
that Republicans have already placed on the Postal Service. But Trump and
his administration are refusing to provide any aid to keep the Postal
Service running.^2 Trump even threatened to veto the congressional
stimulus package if it included any aid to the Postal Service.^3

Although the existence of the Postal Service is enshrined in our
Constitution, Republicans have been maneuvering to shut it down for
decades, and now Trump is jumping on the bandwagon. Why is the GOP
determined to gut the Postal Service? The reason is simple: Republicans
want to bankrupt the Postal Service to allow private equity firms and
global corporations to privatize the service, dismantle the agency, and
profit further off of the American people.

We cannot allow Republicans to succeed. Not only does the Postal Service
employ more than 600,000 of our country's most essential workers—40% of
whom are people of color—for many rural communities it is the only
affordable service to deliver mail and packages. And as we head into the
general election in a time when gathering at in-person polling locations
remains uncertain, a strong Postal Service that can process hundreds of
millions of vote-by-mail ballots is critical to the future of our
democracy.^4,5



[ [link removed] ]Will you chip in $3 now to help us run a digital ad
campaign calling on Congress to include desperately needed aid to the
United States Postal Service in the next stimulus package? Already, more
than 100,000 MoveOn members have echoed the call to protect the Postal
Service, and we need to amplify their voices to members of Congress who
are deciding where to draw the lines for the next stimulus fight.



Republicans and their billionaire cronies have been working toward the
bankruptcy and dismantling of the Postal Service for years. During the
lame-duck session of the GOP-held Congress in 2006, the Bush
administration pushed through a bill that forced the Postal Service to
immediately set aside funding to pay retirement benefits for any current
or future postal worker who could retire over the next 75 years.^6 That
unprecedented move, unlike anything that other agencies or private
businesses are held to, amounted to over $100 billion and immediately put
the Postal Service in debt.^7

And now, in the midst of a pandemic, and while Postal Service workers are
essential workers serving as some Americans' only lifeline by delivering
food and medicine, Donald Trump, Steve Mnuchin, and Republicans in
Congress are trying to bankrupt the Postal Service and allow private
companies to take over.

That move would have disastrous implications. Already, private companies
like UPS, FedEx, and Amazon refuse to deliver to remote and rural areas
and rely on the Postal Service to complete those orders. Additionally, the
Postal Service offers universal pricing and low-cost shipping options, but
if private companies took over, they would certainly hike up prices and
prevent low-income Americans from accessing essential services.

MoveOn is working to flood Congress with thousands of calls demanding that
the Postal Service be fully funded in the next stimulus package, but we
need your help.



[ [link removed] ]John, will you chip in $3 right now to help
us get our digital ad campaign up and running and stop Donald Trump from
shutting down the United States Postal Service?



Thanks for all you do. 

–Kelly, Seth, Jenn, Lisa, and the rest of the team

Sources:

1. "Postal Service Mission and 'Motto,'" United States Postal Service,
accessed April 14, 2020
[link removed]

2. "White House rejects bailout for U.S. Postal Service battered by
coronavirus," The Washington Post, April 11, 2020
[link removed]

3. Ibid.

4. "Workforce Diversity and Inclusiveness," United States Postal Service,
accessed April 14, 2020
[link removed]

5. "U.S. Postal Service warns it could run out of money by October," CBS
News, April 10, 2020
[link removed]

6. "The Manufactured 'Financial Crisis' of the U.S. Postal Service," MR
Online, September 23, 2011
[link removed]

7. Ibid.



Want to support our work? The MoveOn community will work every moment, day
by day and year by year, to resist Trump's agenda, contain the damage,
defeat hate with love, and begin the process of swinging the nation's
pendulum back toward sanity, decency, and the kind of future that we must
never give up on. And to do it we need your support, now more than ever.
Will you stand with us?



[ [link removed] ]Click here to chip in $3, or whatever you can afford.




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