USPS Needs Congress to Act Now
Press release from the Coalition for a 21st Century Postal Service:
The U.S. mailing industry today expressed grave concern with the news that the U.S. Postal Service lost $3.3 billion in the 1st quarter of Fiscal Year 2012. The Coalition for a 21st Century Postal Service, a coalition of businesses and industries tied to the mailing industry, is pushing Congress to take urgent action on reforming the Postal Service.
“We have a Postal Service that essentially is living from paycheck to paycheck, which is a very risky proposition for the American economy and the 8 million private sector workers whose jobs rely on the mail,” said Art Sackler, Coordinator of the Coalition for a 21st Century Postal Service. “A great financial quarter isn’t going to save the Postal Service, but a terrible financial quarter could sink it. That’s why Congress needs to pass postal reform legislation now.”
The coalition is urging the U.S. Senate to pass a bipartisan postal reform bill authored by Senators Joe Lieberman, Tom Carper, Susan Collins and Scott Brown. That bill would return overpayments that USPS has made into the Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS) in order to help the Postal Service encourage early retirements, and help lay the groundwork for streamlining the postal system to more accurately reflect the decreased volume of mail. The coalition has also urged the U.S. House to take up legislation authored by Representatives Darrell Issa and Dennis Ross that would make sweeping reforms of the U.S. Postal Service.
“Each day Congress fails to enact postal reform, this problem grows more difficult and perhaps more expensive to resolve,” said Sackler.