From the National Association of Postal Supervisors

The House Republican Leadership, spearheaded by Chairman Issa, has been developing a plan to end six-day delivery and in turn, use the projected cost savings to fund a Shortfall in the Highway Trust Fund. We have attached a statement where NAPS vehemently opposes this proposal.

The Highway Trust fund is an account, funded by fuel taxes, that funds among other things, Highway Construction and Mass Transit throughout the United States. However, with Americans driving less due to increased use of fuel efficient vehicles and mass transit, this fund has encountered a shortfall and is projected to run out of funds by the end of the year.

We question the accounting methods being used to calculate the funds because there will be no actual funds being transferred, just funds “on paper.” NAPS believes that instead of using the USPS to shore up fiscal issues in another part of the federal government that there needs to be a review of the fuel taxes used to fill the fund’s coffers

NAPS Statement on Chairman Issa’s plan to use United States Postal Service funds to offset Highway Trust Fund shortfall

The National Association of Postal Supervisors (NAPS) opposes House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa’s new plan to largely end six-day mail delivery and in turn, use the projected “savings” to fund the shortfall in the Highway Trust Fund.

The Highway Trust Fund customarily has been financed through fuel taxes at the pump. But fuel-efficiency and fewer driving miles by Americans over the past several years have shrunk the Highway Trust Fund to perilous levels. If current projections hold firm, the Fund will have exhausted all its reserves by the end of this year.

Darrell Issa’s proposal, through accounting slight-of-hand, would transfer the reputed “savings” achieved through ending Saturday delivery to the beleaguered Highway Trust Fund. But those savings are fictitious. No real money will actually have been transferred, only sums on spreadsheets. The Highway Trust Fund will appear to have been restored, but only on paper.

This is not the first time the Congress has turned to the Postal Service to serve as a cash cow to shore up deficits of the rest of the federal government. Historically, surpluses in the postal account, especially in better times, have been used to offset spending deficits on the rest of government’s ledger. Now, Darrell Issa has proposed that Congress turn to accounting gimmickry once again to purportedly rescue the Highway Trust Fund.

Through his disingenuous proposal, Darrell Issa has become the fabled emperor without clothes. It’s time that Darrell Issa shared the naked truth with the American people. The Highway Trust Fund needs to be shored up through its traditional source of funds – fuel taxes. And it’s critical that Congress preserve the Postal Service, one of America’s most cherished institutions, and not dismantle it.