The U.S. Senate's bailout of the faltering Postal Service just postpones reforms and restructuring that have to take place. And the nearly $11 billion allocated to the service in the bill would make the needed changes all the more expensive.

House GOP leaders have rightly said it's going nowhere in their chamber.

Even Postal Service officials have said the Senate legislation doesn't provide the service with "the speed and flexibility it needs" to make needed cost reductions.

The Postal Service wants to end Saturday mail delivery and change its delivery standards to reduce requirements in some locations for overnight delivery of first class mail.

Close to 4,000 distribution centers and post offices are on the chopping block in the Postal Service's own cost-reduction plan, but the Senate legislation slows the delivery reform and closing process.

The key problem confronting the Postal Service is that 80 percent of its costs can be attributed to its labor force while comparable costs for rivals such as Fed-Ex and United Parcel Service vary between 35 percent and 55 percent.

The Senate bill spends millions to sweeten retirement incentives, which would help cut payroll, but it doesn't deal realistically with the central labor cost issue.

The Postal Service has an important task. But in the age of the Internet and speedier and private mail and package delivery services, it has to be allowed to reshape itself and make itself more competitive and flexible.

The Senate bill relieves senators of having to face unhappy Post Office users in an election year, but it picks their pockets to do so.

It deserves to be ignored.

REPRINTED FROM THE DETROIT NEWS