A sample letter:

I understand the Senate is presently considering taking action to stabilize the U.S. Postal Service with a short-term cash infusion while delaying most decisions on closing post offices and ending Saturday mail delivery.

I expect you recognize the real solution to this problem would be to end the ill-considered PAEA mandate that is killing the USPS. Your support of such action would gain my contuing support.

Yours truly,

But there are others. I have a large rural style mail box and some days it is literally 90% full of unsolicited advertising circulars, grocery store mailers, catalogs and other junk mailed at heavily discounted bulk rates. This stuff is not even opened, it goes immediately into the recycle bin. And I've talked to many of the other customers along our mail route and to a person their reaction to this crap is identical to mine. I'd venture to say that just on our route alone the monthly amount of bulk rate junk mail is at least a ton..

I'd be more than willing to spend a buck for a first class stamp if it would save me from having to deal with the unwanted mail I get.

I'm unclear on how much of this US post offices already do but here (UK), our post offices deal with all kinds of stuff. Almost all of our routine official licenses (i.e. fishing and hunting licenses) are done through the post office, they offer basic banking services (i.e. basic deposit and debit service but not checking or loans), you can change foreign currency (bills only, no coins) and we have a service called PayZone or PayPoint where most of your household bills have a barcode which can then be used to pay them over-the-counter at the post office. They partnered with one of the big insurance companies (can't remember which) to offer insurance services too and with one of the big telecom companies to offer basic phone and internet. Take a look at the services we can do through the post office (http://www.postoffice.co.uk/) and there's no reason US post offices can't do most of the same services.

Essentially, if you take all the times all of us need to deal with various forms of "oficial-dom", most of them can be done through the post office and as a result, post offices here are still thriving centres of the community. Some offices need to be closed or moved as the population changes, of course, but there's simply no need for huge cuts, especially if that ridiculous PAEA law is removed.

you missed the point entirely. The US congress is not interested in offering ADDITIONAL services through the Post Office or any other agency of the government. Every effort is being made to REDUCE and ELIMINATE services. The intention being that whatever services are cut are either a) not necessary, or b) can be done for profit by one of their contributors. The goal is to privatize every necessary service in this country. The PAEA is the strangle-hold until the final and fatal blow is delivered.