{"id":5660,"date":"2013-01-15T15:54:10","date_gmt":"2013-01-15T20:54:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/?p=5660"},"modified":"2013-01-15T15:54:10","modified_gmt":"2013-01-15T20:54:10","slug":"apwu-congress-must-act-quickly-to-pass-postal-bill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/2013\/01\/15\/apwu-congress-must-act-quickly-to-pass-postal-bill\/","title":{"rendered":"APWU: Congress Must Act Quickly To Pass Postal Bill"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Congress must work quickly to pass a postal reform bill, APWU President Cliff Guffey told broadcaster Ed Schultz in a radio interview on Jan. 14. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter whether the Postal Service will run out of money early this year or late this year \u2014 it\u2019s the right thing to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lawmakers should pick up where they left off at the end of the last session of Congress, Guffey said, instead of starting all over.<\/p>\n

One of the worst aspects of the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act (PAEA) \u2014 beside the requirement to pre-fund 75 years worth of healthcare benefits for future retirees within a 10-year period \u2014 was the section of the law that prohibits the USPS from raising postage rates to pay for the pre-funding, Guffey said.<\/p>\n

[listen to full interview<\/a>]<\/p>\n

\u2018Anyone Would Go Bankrupt\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

No business in the world could survive a mandate from the government to pay out $5 billion a year without the ability to raise its rates, he said. \u201cAnyone would go bankrupt.\u201d<\/p>\n

The result of the PAEA is no accident, the union president said. \u201cIt\u2019s done exactly what it was designed to do.\u201d The Postal Service was not in debt in 2006 when the law was enacted, but to pay for the pre-funding mandate, the USPS has had to borrow up to the legal limit, he noted.<\/p>\n

Supporters of the law \u201cwant us to be like some of these other privatized countries,\u201d Guffey said, \u201clike Germany, where stamps are 78 cents.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey want to take down a part of government everyone likes,\u201d he said, \u201cand they get a bonus of taking down the union.\u201d<\/p>\n

There\u2019s little Democrats can do without cooperation from Republicans, Guffey said. Getting anything accomplished in the Senate takes 60 votes these days, he noted. And in the last session of Congress, House leaders refused to consider a bill co-sponsored by more than half of House members that would have saved the Postal Service. \u201cThat\u2019s the tragedy of our whole government right now,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Future \u2018Still Very Good\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

The future of the Postal Service is \u201cstill very good,\u201d Guffey said. \u201cYou can order a lot of things \u2014 even on your phone,\u201d he said, \u201cbut the Postal Service will have to deliver it,\u201d especially as more brick-and-mortar retail establishments disappear.<\/p>\n

\u201cMore and more mail of FedEx and UPS is being moved over to be delivered by the Postal Service because we do have the infrastructure to get it done and get it done timely,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

There are parts of the country that aren\u2019t served by private couriers. \u201cThey have to hand it over to us, or it won\u2019t get delivered,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Congress must work quickly to pass a postal reform bill, APWU President Cliff Guffey told broadcaster Ed Schultz in a radio interview on Jan. 14. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter whether the Postal Service will run out of money early this year or late this year \u2014 it\u2019s the right thing to do.\u201d Lawmakers should pick up […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5660","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-apwu-news","last_archivepost"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5660","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=5660"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5660\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5663,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5660\/revisions\/5663"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5660"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5660"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5660"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}