A CONCURRENT RESOLUTION, Urging Congress and the South Dakota congressional delegation to support federal legislation to protect the United States Postal Service.

    WHEREAS, the United States Postal Service is the oldest and most trusted government service that binds the nation together, promotes commerce, and enables the exchange of information to promote democracy; and

    WHEREAS, the United States Postal Service is entirely supported by the sale of postage and services, receiving no tax payer funding, and remains the least expensive, most efficient postal system in the world; and

    WHEREAS, the United States Postal Service provides good paying middle class jobs, across the nation and in South Dakota, of which twenty percent are filled by veterans; and

    WHEREAS, the current economic problems of the United States Postal Service were caused by federal legislation requiring only the postal service to prefund all retiree health benefit costs for the next seventy-five years in just ten years; and

    WHEREAS, the Office of Inspector General has determined that the United States Postal

Service has overpaid into both of its federal retirement programs by billions of dollars; and

    WHEREAS, without this congressional mandate the United States Postal Service has made a profit of six hundred eleven million dollars over the last four years even in a historically bad recession:

    NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, by the House of Representatives of the Eighty-seventh Legislature of the State of South Dakota, the Senate concurring therein, that the South Dakota State Legislature supports federal legislation in the form of S.1853 and H.R.3591 to remove congressionally imposed dates not required of other government agencies or private companies and urges our Congressional delegation to support such legislation; and

    BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the South Dakota State Legislature supports corrective action on a federal level that allows continuation of six day delivery and prevents the closing of rural post offices and postal processing centers which will result in diminished service, delayed delivery to our rural communities, and the loss of hundreds of jobs in the state and thousands of jobs across the nation.