For Immediate Release Sept. 14, 2016
Contact: Jamie Horwitz 202/549-4921, jhdcpr@starpower.net
Music Legend Willie Nelson Lends His Support to Campaign to Preserve and Promote Public Postal Services
In New Video Farm Aid Founder Draws Connections to Corporate Interests Undermining USPS in a Manner Similar to Pressures Placed on Family Farms
Bristow, Virginia – This week, Willie Nelson, legendary troubadour and longtime advocate for farmers and for rural America, performs at the annual Farm Aid concert and also appears in a video calling on Americans to join a nationwide campaign to preserve and enhance the U.S. Postal Service.
“The Post Office is older than the United States itself. It’s written in the Constitution,” says Nelson in a video that has gone viral on the Facebook page of A Grand Alliance to Save our Public Postal Service (AGA).
AGA will be part of Farm Aid 2016’s HOMEGROWN Village, informing concertgoers about the importance of maintaining a public postal service that connects Americans at every income level in cities, towns and villages across America – including rural areas with few other communication options.
Nelson will be joined at Farm Aid 2016 on Saturday, September 17, at Jiffy Lube Live in Bristow, Virginia, outside Washington, D.C., by a lineup of artists that includes fellow board members Neil Young, John Mellencamp and Dave Matthews. Farm Aid, whose mission is to create a vibrant family farm system of agriculture in America, is a co-sponsor of the Grand Alliance, along with more than 130 labor, civil rights, faith and community organizations.
“The universal, public Postal Service is an essential link for farmers and rural residents,” said populist radio commentator Jim Hightower, who interviewed Nelson in the Grand Alliance’s video, “There are places where UPS or FedEx or other private companies just won’t go. But the U.S. Postal Service delivers everywhere – in every community, no matter how small or large.”
While the volume of First-Class Mail has declined in recent years, package delivery has been growing by double-digit margins every year. In 2013, Amazon selected the U.S. Postal Service as a partner for its Sunday delivery program.
Farm Aid and other members of the Grand Alliance are united on a proactive agenda to maintain and expand a public Postal Service. Critical issues include: a return to next-day First-Class Mail delivery; protecting six-day delivery of mail; a moratorium on closing of processing facilities; addressing an artificial financial crisis manufactured by some in Congress; and expanded services, including postal banking.
Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND), a member of the U.S. Senate committee overseeing the USPS, has sounded the alarm about the impact of cutbacks in postal service on rural communities. “Mail is a critical lifeline in rural America and all North Dakotans deserve access to high-quality mail delivery and service, regardless of where they live,” said Heitkamp. “But in too many places…that has not been happening.”
“Many rural communities are bank deserts with few, if any, financial services available,” said American Postal Workers Union President Mark Dimondstein. “Services like ATM withdrawals, electronic fund transfers and even small loans could save rural families thousands of dollars in fees. That’s the kind of lifeline we need in small towns and farm communities.”
According to a 2014 white paper by the USPS Inspector General, more than a quarter of U.S. households – some 68 million adults – are undeserved by traditional banks. In 2012, these families paid $89 billion annually in interest and fees to currency exchanges and other non-bank financial entities.
A Grand Alliance to Save Our Public Postal Service is a coalition of more than 130 location and national civil rights, environmental, faith-based and labor organizations united to advocate for a great public postal service, including non-profit postal banking and other financial services. For more information, please visit http://www.agrandalliance.org
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