(Washington, D.C.) – Today, the Council for Citizens Against Government Waste (CCAGW) President Tom Schatz sent a letter to the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, urging committee members to oppose S. 1486, the Postal Reform Act of 2013. The letter reads as follows:
“On Wednesday, two days after the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) increased the cost of a first-class stamp by three cents, from $.46 to $.49, the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs will mark up S. 1486, the Postal Reform Act of 2013, sponsored by Sens. Tom Carper (D-Del.) and Tom Coburn (R-Okla.). Although S. 1486 is an improvement from S. 1789, its predecessor in the 112th Congress, it still misses the mark on several key provisions and fails to offer the kind of structural reforms needed to address the serious financial problems facing the agency. On behalf of the more than one million members and supporters of the Council for Citizens Against Government Waste (CCAGW), I urge you to oppose this legislation.
Despite mounting losses, which totaled $5 billion in 2013, USPS continues to operate under an antiquated business model with far too many employees, mail processing facilities, and post offices. S. 1486 would preserve Saturday delivery for at least one year and preserve package delivery for at least two years, which USPS estimates costs $2 billion annually. S. 1486 also places a two-year moratorium on service standard changes and plant closings, which will prevent USPS from downsizing its bloated labor force. This bill would also codify USPS’s ability to enter into new, non-postal lines of business, giving the agency an unfair advantage in areas already well-served by robust private-sector competition.
The House bill, H.R. 2748, which was reported by the Oversight and Government Reform Committee on July 24, 2013, does more than S. 1486, although still not enough, to modernize and reform the USPS. The bill would eliminate the prohibition on closing a post office solely because it is operating at a deficit, make it easier to close or consolidate post offices, and reduce the deadline for review of post office closures from 120 to 60 days. The bill would also eliminate six-day mail delivery and give the USPS greater freedom to manage its operations efficiently.
S. 1486 is supposed to alleviate the needs of USPS and deter a costly taxpayer bailout. Unfortunately, the current form of the bill is likely insufficient to accomplish either goal. I urge you to oppose this legislation. All floor votes on S. 1486 will be among those included in CCAGW’s 2014 Congressional Ratings.”
The Council for Citizens Against Government Waste is the lobbying arm of Citizens Against Government Waste, the nation’s largest nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in government.
Makes one laugh, groups like this are the equivalent of hired guns in the old west. The mention of quantatative numbers in membership is meant to shake you to your core and start a scare tactic type reaction which they hope leads to a retracement in your thinking process. The writer seems to be fragmenting this in bullets or skimming the service of the bill with really no hard facts backing up each subject line spoken about. It also seems the writer is misinformed on the mention of a bloated labor force. Since the year 2000, the Postal Service has shed 300,000 career jobs, which equates to a 40% drop. Also, the business model is now far from antiquated and continues to provide cutting edge processing and distribution technology. If not for a rather indecisive congress who holds the dubious distinction as “the worst congress in history at getting things done” the Postal service would have been much further down this road. Another misnomer is the statement that the Postal service operated at a 5 billion dollar loss in 2013. In actuality, the Postal Service posted an operating profit of $623 million in 2013 and is projecting a $1.1 billion operating profit this year, but still needs reform to strengthen financially for years to come. Cutting through the red tape and allowing the Postal service to compete with it’s competition on an equal playing field is for the betterment of all consumers. With pricing that is far less then UPS or FEDEX for Priority mail and all package buisness you can be assured that the Postal service has no intentions of kicking this incredibly lucrative buisness to the curb. Just the opposite, these two types of services will and are fast becoming the “bread & butter” of the Postal service going forward. Closing facilities across the country should be reconsidered and possibly reestablished as future “package locations” to not only increase volume capabilities but also customer service while providing employee’s who otherwise would be out of a job to remain close to home. Using a customer base through prior package purchases would provide the information needed for feasible placement of “package facilities” all across the country. Sometimes, the hired gun can’t get the job done!
Citizens Against Government Waste should be called Corporations against goverment regulations.
What a scam outfit. A bunch of lobbyists taking money from large corporation then doing what lobbyist do.
I wonder who ‘donated’ for them to attack and malign the Post Office.