{"id":4573,"date":"2012-06-09T18:55:34","date_gmt":"2012-06-09T23:55:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/?p=4573"},"modified":"2012-06-09T18:55:34","modified_gmt":"2012-06-09T23:55:34","slug":"nalc-says-senators-overlooked-critical-information-in-postal-reform-discussion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/2012\/06\/09\/nalc-says-senators-overlooked-critical-information-in-postal-reform-discussion\/","title":{"rendered":"NALC says Senators overlooked critical information in postal reform discussion"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"highslide\" onclick=\"return vz.expand(this)\" href=\"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/NALC-News1.gif\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-thumbnail wp-image-4574\" title=\"NALC News\" src=\"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/NALC-News1-150x150.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>NALC President Fredric V. Rolando\u2019s letter to the editor of Politico was published on Friday, June 8. He calls \u201cunrealistic\u201d the 2006 congressional mandate that the Postal Service pre-fund retiree health benefits for the next 75 years, and do so in 10 years, which accounts for 95 percent of the Postal Service\u2019s red ink this fiscal year and almost all of its losses in recent years and is something no other government agency or private enterprise faces.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Rolando&#8217;s letter is below:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>Sens. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), Susan Collins (R-Maine), Scott Brown (R-Mass.) and Tom Carper (D-Del.), while pushing their postal bill in their Opinion piece, \u201cHouse Must Deliver on Postal Reform\u201d (POLITICO, June 4), overlooked critical information.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>They speak of a Postal Service in \u201cfinancial free fall\u201d \u2014 blaming the Internet and workers. But they omitted the factor that\u2019s caused 95 percent of the red ink this fiscal year \u2014 $6.2 billion of $6.5 billion \u2014 and almost all losses in recent years. The 2006 congressional mandate that the Postal Service pre-fund retiree health benefits for the next 75 years, and do so in 10 years, is an unrealistic obligation no other agency or company faces.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>In fiscal 2012\u2019s first quarter, for example, the Postal Service announced a $200 million operational profit delivering the mail \u2014 but a paper loss exceeding $3 billion. Why? A pre-funding payment exceeding $3 billion.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>We know that fixing this won\u2019t solve all issues. More people, for example, are paying bills online. But fixing it would, according to USPS data, eliminate most of the red ink.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>In addition, by removing the crisis atmosphere, it would let stakeholders \u2014 the USPS, mailing industry, employees, legislators, federal regulators \u2014 craft a business strategy to meet the needs of an evolving society.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Degrading service \u2014 as in the current Senate and House bills \u2014 isn\u2019t a business plan. Instead, it\u2019s a path toward dismantling the unique network and driving customers away.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Consider the push to end Saturday delivery. It would save 2 percent of the budget \u2014 by stopping 17 percent of service. Moreover, it jeopardizes the future. The Postal Service credited the sharp rise in e-commerce packages for its $200 million profit. The best day to deliver packages: Saturday, when most people are home.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Congress must do better.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Fredric Rolando, President<br \/>\nNational Association of Letter Carriers<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>NALC President Fredric V. Rolando\u2019s letter to the editor of Politico was published on Friday, June 8. He calls \u201cunrealistic\u201d the 2006 congressional mandate that the Postal Service pre-fund retiree health benefits for the next 75 years, and do so in 10 years, which accounts for 95 percent of the Postal Service\u2019s red ink this [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4573","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nalc-news","last_archivepost"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4573","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=4573"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4573\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4575,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4573\/revisions\/4575"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}