{"id":2752,"date":"2011-09-06T16:26:02","date_gmt":"2011-09-06T21:26:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/?p=2752"},"modified":"2011-09-06T16:26:02","modified_gmt":"2011-09-06T21:26:02","slug":"postmasters-calls-on-congress-to-stop-closing-post-offices-and-to-let-usps-pension-overpayments-prefund-retiree-health-benefits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/2011\/09\/06\/postmasters-calls-on-congress-to-stop-closing-post-offices-and-to-let-usps-pension-overpayments-prefund-retiree-health-benefits\/","title":{"rendered":"Postmasters Calls on Congress to Stop Closing Post Offices and to Let USPS Pension Overpayments Prefund Retiree Health Benefits"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

National League of Postmasters Calls on Congress to Stop Closing Post Offices and to Let USPS Pension Overpayments Prefund Retiree Health Benefits<\/strong><\/p>\n

USPS Pension and Retiree Health Benefits Payments Should be Realigned;
\nUSPS Should Not Withdraw from the Federal Retiree Health Benefit Plan.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

ALEXANDRIA, VIRGINIA \u2013 \u201cEnough is enough. Congress must act. The time to act is now and the action to take is to allow the Postal Service\u2019s pension overpayments to be transferred to its retiree health benefit fund,\u201d said LEAGUE President Mark Strong in a statement submitted today to the Senate hearing on the Postal Service crisis. \u201cThis would allow the Postal Service to stop closing rural post offices and stop devastating thousands of small rural communities,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s hearing, chaired by Senator Joseph Lieberman (CT), was before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. Entitled \u201cU.S. Postal Service in Crisis: Proposals to Prevent a Postal Shutdown,\u201d today\u2019s hearing focused on the current conditions of\u00a0 the Postal Service and the fact that Congress will not let it use its pension overpayments to prefund its retiree health benefit obligations.<\/p>\n

\u201cAllowing the Postal Service to use those overpayments, calculated by actuaries to be as much as $75 billion, to prefund the retiree health benefit obligation would relieve the Postal Service\u2019s current financial stress and allow it to calmly refocus on the future,\u201d said Strong. \u201cIt would also help the economy and help prevent a double-dip recession,\u201d added Strong. \u201cIdeas such as withdrawing from the Federal Employee Health Plan are terrible ideas, should not be taken seriously, and simply reflect the frustration that top Postal Service management feels,\u201d he concluded.<\/p>\n

Because of the way the law is written, the Postal Service must make more than $8 billion per year in pension and retiree health benefit payments, despite pension overpayments of up to $75 billion. While the Postal Service has been losing billions of dollars each year since the recession started, if the overpayments were officially recognized and credited towards the retiree health benefit obligation, and current payments stopped, it would be running in the black,\u201d said Robert Brinkmann, the LEAGUE\u2019s Legislative Counsel. This \u201ccrisis\u201d is a crisis that, while precipitated by the recession, has been created by Congress, and it is a crisis that only Congress can resolve.<\/p>\n

The National League of Postmasters has been representing active and retired postmasters throughout the country since the later part of the 19th Century.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

National League of Postmasters Calls on Congress to Stop Closing Post Offices and to Let USPS Pension Overpayments Prefund Retiree Health Benefits USPS Pension and Retiree Health Benefits Payments Should be Realigned; USPS Should Not Withdraw from the Federal Retiree Health Benefit Plan. ALEXANDRIA, VIRGINIA \u2013 \u201cEnough is enough. Congress must act. The time to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2752","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-breaking","last_archivepost"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2752","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2752"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2752\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2755,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2752\/revisions\/2755"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}