Editor,
In 2006, Congress enacted an erroneous law that required the Postal Service to pre-fund retiree healthcare for the next 75 years in a 10-year period. This single mandate of $5.5 billion per year is crippling the Postal Service. This is a manufactured crisis that Congress created and Congress can fix. No other Federal Agency pre-funds retiree healthcare a single cent. The Postal Service currently has over $49 billion in the pre-funding account. Eighty percent of the red ink is directly linked to this erroneous mandate. Congress broke it and Congress can fix it. Eliminate the Pre-funding. Congress must:
1. Stabilize the Postal Service’s finances by reforming or eliminating unwise and unfair pension and retiree health financing policies that have crippled the Postal Service’s finances since 2006
2. Strengthen and protect the Postal Service’s invaluable first-mile and last-mile networks that together comprise a crucial part of the nation’s infrastructure
3. Overhaul the basic governance structure of the agency to attract first-class executive talent and a private-sector style board of directors with the demonstrated business expertise needed to implement a strategy that will allow the Postal Service to innovate and take advantage of growth opportunities even as it adjusts to declining traditional mail volume
4. Free the Postal Service to meet the evolving needs of the American economy and to set its prices in a way that reflects the cost structure of the delivery industry while assuring affordable universal service and protecting against anti-competitive abuses.
In addition, both FERS and CSRS retirement accounts have surpluses in the billions and should be returned to the Postal Service. The Postal Service is the most trusted federal agency, nation’s largest employer of Veterans, doesn’t receive a single penny of taxpayer money and is headed in the right direction. There is absolutely no need to dismantle the Postal Service and while Congressman Darrel Issa is using flawed premises and flawed policies to hasten the demise of the Postal Service, others really are working to save it.
Ronnie Roush
Carmel Letter Carrier