Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., is sponsoring a bill to prevent a public bailout of the United States Postal Service and transform it into a more modern, business-like enterprise.
The USPS on Wednesday announced the budget-cutting move of halting payments into its Federal Employee Retirement System. Issa, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, was unhappy with the decision, reports DailyCaller.com.
Issa said in a written statement that the USPS lost $8.5 billion in 2010 and stands to lose $8.3 billion this year.
“Congress can’t keep kicking the can down the road on out-of-control labor costs and excess infrastructure of USPS, and needs to implement reforms that aren’t a multi-billion-dollar taxpayer-funded bailout,” the statement read, in part.
Issa’s legislation would set up a Postal Service Financial Responsibility and Management Assistance Authority. The agency “will have a broad mandate to restructure the Postal Service and reduce costs in order to bring the institution back to fiscal solvency when the Postal Service goes into default to the Federal government.
The Authority will be disbanded once USPS meets several benchmarks that ensure financial health.” A second newly formed agency, the Commission on Postal Reorganization, would work on trimming costs by $2 billion annually by consolidating post office locations.
Under the plan, postal worker compensation and benefits would be trimmed for an estimated $700 million in savings for fiscal 2010. With all cuts in place, the USPS will save $6 billion annually, according to the oversight committee.
One postal union, the National Association of Letter Carriers, described the bill as “a draconian downsizing plan and a misguided and unjustifiable attack on hard-working postal employees who provide the most affordable and highest-quality mail service in the world.”
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