Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator John McCain (R-AZ) today introduced the Postal Reform Act of 2011, a bill to restore the financial health and long-term viability of the United States Postal Service. The Postal Service is expected to end this fiscal year with a $10 billion loss, and by its own estimates faces a shortfall of up to $238 billion by 2020. At the end of this month, the Postal Service will not be able to make a required $5.5 billion payment to fund future retirees’ health benefits. This legislation is needed to ensure that future generations of Americans will have a viable Postal Service. This bill is the Senate companion to the legislation introduced by Representative Darrell Issa (R-CA) in the U.S. House of Representatives this summer.
Senator McCain submitted the following statement for the record upon introducing the Postal Reform Act of 2011:
“Mr. President, today I am introducing the Postal Reform Act of 2011, which will restore the financial health and long-term viability of the United States Postal Service. This bill is the companion to the legislation that Representative Darrell Issa introduced in the House of Representatives in June of this year. I thank Representative Issa for his leadership on this important issue.
“According to their own estimates, by 2020 the Postal Service expects to face a shortfall of up to $238 billion. Even with dramatic cost savings of $12 billion and workforce reduction of 110,000 postal employees in the past four years, the Postal Service is expected to end this fiscal year with a $10 billion loss.
“First-Class mail, which makes up more than half of Postal Service revenues, continues to fall at alarming rates and shows no signs of ever recovering. This, combined with 80 percent labor costs and labor contracts that contain ‘no-layoff’ clauses, points to the fact that the Postal Service is broken.
“Congress can no longer enact temporary fixes that avert financial crisis for only a brief period. Congress, the Postal Service, labor unions, and the mailing community must be willing to lay everything on the table and make hard choices now to save the Postal Service for the future. I believe the Postal Reform Act of 2011 will do just that.
“Two key provisions in this bill alone would save the Postal Service billions of dollars annually. First, the bill would create a Postal Service Financial Responsibility and Management Assistance Authority, which is modeled after the District of Columbia control board Congress created to address the fiscal crises the city was facing in the mid-1990s. This Authority, triggered by a Postal Service default on its federal obligations, would replace the Postal Board of Governors with mandates to cut costs, and put the Postal Service back on a path to financial solvency.
“The second key provision would create a Commission on Postal Reorganization that would use a BRAC-like process to consolidate and close post offices and mail processing facilities. According to the Postal Service, the ‘current mail processing network has a capacity of over 250 billion pieces of mail per year when mail volume is now 160 billion pieces of mail. Right-sizing the network is vital to the future of the Postal Service and its customers.’ Congress, however, continues to put up political road blocks that prevent these closings and consolidations. This bill will take politics out of the process and allow the Postal Service to right-size its operations.
“Other provisions in the bill would require arbitrators to take into account the financial health of the Postal Service if labor contracts move to arbitration. It would also exempt the Postal Service from the Davis-Bacon Act, the Service Contract Act, and other wage rules that increase contracting costs.
“Additionally, there are certain types of mail upon which the Postal Service routinely loses money. This bill would require that the vendors responsible for this mail be responsible for covering their costs. In Fiscal Year 2010, the Postal Service lost nearly $1.7 billion on these type of ‘underwater’ postal products that failed to cover their costs. For example, the Periodicals class of mail, which includes newspapers and magazines, has not covered its costs for 14 consecutive years, generating total losses of $4.3 billion over that period.
“The bill also contains common sense language that would mandate that Postal Service employees pay the same health and life insurance premium percentage as other federal workers. This is estimated to save the Postal Service $700 million annually.
“Finally, this bill will allow the Postal Service to move to 5-day delivery, at a savings of anywhere from $1.7 to $3.1 billion annually.
“We can no longer support temporary fixes to the Postal Service. If we continue to act in this irresponsible way, the American taxpayer will be the one that ultimately suffers in the form of higher postage prices and taxpayer bailouts. We must make hard choices now so future generations of Americans will have a viable Postal Service.”
More people on unemployment and welfare and other types of hand outs that should help the tax payers never any mention of where are 75 billion dollar overpayment went or why we can’t get it back no sense of keeping us working we will stand in line and wait for our hand outs too. WELL DONE ISSA/MCCAIN!
If passed, this legislation will be known as the “Postal Aparthied” bill. As this will impact the poor and middle class beyond reproach. Another arrogant Republican debacle. Henchman for Big Business that is sitting on their laurels in not initiating any economic leadership in reforming to sustainable energy, transportation, communication, etc…and list goes on. They’re only interested lining their pockets with easy, fast money! Before I lose my job I’d like to buy an American made Toaster for more money so that I’ll know it will last.
THIS BILL IS NO SMARTER THAN ISSA’S .THE WAGES ARE NOT COMPARABLE TO OUR COMPETITORS WHEN LOOKING AT % OF REVENUE AS USPS IS FULL TIME WORK AND YOU ARE ADDING MANAGEMENT SALARIES INTO THE AVERAGE INCLUDING THE PMG AND HIS 863000 PACKAGE FROM LAST YEAR.ARBITRATORS ALWAYS LOOK AT THE HEALTH OF THE COMPANY IN RULINGS.MY HEALTH INSURANCE HAS INCREASED 250% IN 4 YEARS WITH HIGHER COPAYS EVERYWHERE! HOW ABOUT CONGRESS PAYING MOOOOOOOOOOOOORE FOR THEI R HEALTH COVERAGE AND RETIREMENT??????????YOU ARE NOT GOD!!
Poor ole man woke up long enough to hear someone whisper this article in his ear, poor ole man. He says:
“The second key provision would create a Commission on Postal Reorganization that would use a BRAC-like process to consolidate and close post offices and mail processing facilities. According to the Postal Service, the ‘current mail processing network has a capacity of over 250 billion pieces of mail per year when mail volume is now 160 billion pieces of mail.”
Poor ole man woke up long enough to hear someone whisper this article in his ear, poor ole man.
We have that capacity and for years we have met the challenge of delivering this extraordinary amount of mail to every door in the World. We did it while having to work unwanted overtime in a lot of situations, including 6 day work weeks. Now the workload is more in line with what it should be for the amount of current employees who are still working overtime , yes, including off days at my facility. There is nothing wrong with the USPS other than congressional interference. Yea, shut the USPS down and then shut congress down. We did fine until they saw a cash cow and the milked it clean, spent our overpayment of the Federal mandate and then started to point fingers at innocent workers and their families. In a way I wish we would all lose our jobs in America, and I mean all of us, so that no one would be paying taxes and these politicians could not get these salaries that they command to lie to us to get elected to promote personal agendas. Take a look at their salaries versus yours here.
http://www.wealthdaily.com/articles/richest-members-of-congress-revealed/3208
This idiot doesn’t have a clue and what’s frightening is he was a Presidential candidate.
Again, totally ignoring the prefunding mandates.
AND, add TWO MORE committees, or bureaus, whatever you want to call them. Another layer of bureaucracy that is going to drive the USPS nuts and into the ground.
The USPS has enough boards governing us. They need to be given or use the authority to fix what is wrong, without two more groups of idiots trying to ruin us.
JOHN MCCAIN AND DARRELL ISSA ARE A COUPLE OF REPUBLICAN UNION BUSTERS. THEY ARE ALREADY TRYING TO SET A TONE FOR THE UNION NEGOTIATIONS BETWEEN USPS AND THE NALC. WHEN THEY PROPOSE WE PAY THE SAME AS OTHER FEDERAL EMPLOYEES FOR OUR HEALTH CARE DOES THIS INCLUDE THEMSELVES? WE CAN ONLY IMAGINE HOW NICE HEALTH COVERAGE SUCH AS THEIRS MUST BE. THEY ALSO WOULD HAVE NO PROBLEM EXEMPTING THE USPS FROM FOLLOWING THE GUIDELINES OF THE DAVIS-BACON ACT BUT NOT THEIR CRONIES AT HALLIBURTON.
And yet ANOTHER Republican legislator with their hands in the pot.
Once again the fact that there is a 75 billion surplus in the pension system and the ridiculous pre-funding or retirees health benefits to the tune of 5.5 billion a year, is not even mentioned. What a surprise! The PMGs 800,000 salary and his 23 VPs salary of 300,000 to 500,000 plus the countless other high paid employees who never touch any mail except their own. Of course that isn’t mentioned. Instead lets cut the portion of the workforce that actually works and bust the unions and their labor agreements. Typical.
[…] SENATOR JOHN McCAIN INTRODUCES POSTAL REFORM ACT | Postal Employee Network. […]
This bill, along with Issa’s, is an outrage in so many ways. If it passes, it will lower postal worker’s wages and benefits, throw out the union contracts, lose business, and destroy the Postal Service. The requirement of prepaying the health benefits so many years into the future is what got the USPS in this financial mess, not the reasons that Issa and McCain state. And this will just create ANOTHER useless government arm.
Each and every USPS worker needs to phone their congressman and tell them to vote NO on these proposals NOW!
Sen McCain thanks Rep. Issa for his “leadership”? It’s time to strip congress of their too generous benefits thast are paid by the tax payers. At the very least they should have to practive what they preach.
Blame everything except the wasteful spending and shenanagans at the top. How about making the big boys pay into their own healthcare instead of giving them a free ride?