Postal Service Set to Default on Billions in Health Fund Payments

Posted on July 20, 2012 by Ron

The Postal Service, faced with continuing financial losses because of a drop in mail volume, expects to default for the first time on its annual payment for future retiree health benefits.

The $5.5 billion payment, which was deferred from the 2011 fiscal year, is due Aug. 1. The Postal Service is also scheduled to make a $5.6 billion payment for 2012 in September. A spokesman for the agency said that barring intervention from Congress, it would default on both payments.

“We are simply not capable of making either of these payments to the U.S. Treasury, in part or in full, while continuing to meet our other legal obligations, including our obligation to provide universal service to the American people,” said the spokesman, Dave Partenheimer.

Missing the health care payment will not cause immediate disaster, nor will it affect current retiree benefits. The Postal Service will still be able to pay its employees and buy fuel for its trucks to deliver mail on time, postal officials said.

To read more about this latest problem to beset the USPS and the reasons for it, please click here

The Trap Shoot Must Go On: Guess Who’ll Be Shootin’ with ALEC Members in Salt Lake? The NRA (and a Machine Gun Corp)

Posted on July 20, 2012 by BobSloan

From PRWatch’s Lisa Graves

Madison, WI — Three months after the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) issued a PR statement that it was eliminating its Public Safety and Elections Task Force, which was previously led by the National Rifle Association (NRA), the NRA announced that it would still be hosting its regular annual shooting event at ALEC’s summer convention in Salt Lake City on July 28. For the past several years, on the Saturday of ALEC’s annual meeting, the NRA has regularly hosted an outing for ALEC legislators and lobbyists to go shooting together — with complimentary guns and ammo plus plenty of food and drink (this time it is a barbeque).

Read this entire important article by Lisa Graves here…