A Sign of the Times
The mailers groups and other interests which fought tirelessly for 11 years for a reform law that would tie future postage increases to the rate of inflation (as determined by the Consumer Price Index) may have outsmarted themselves, big time.
In testimony last Wednesday before the House Subcommittee on the Federal Workforce, Postal Service and District of Columbia, Dan Blair, chairman of the Postal Regulatory Commission said current data indicates next year’s rate increase would fall below 1%.
Taken by itself that sounds good, right? A real break from the punishing postal increases the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act was supposed to abolish (even though in recent years some rates exceeded the CPI).
But anybody in this industry knows the U.S. Postal Service is in really deep financial doo-doo with no end in sight.
During the past few months, Postmaster General Jack Potter has begged Congressional panels either to let the USPS cut out a delivery day to save money and for some sort of relief from its $5.4 billion-a-year obligation to pay the healthcare costs of retired employees.
And that’s not counting the $2 billion the USPS also has to pay in healthcare premiums for current employees.
True, Rep. John McHugh (R-NY)’s bill, H.R. 22, now circulating in Congress with 195 co-sponsors, seeks to suspend this payment for eight years. But even if this bill becomes law in its current form (which seems unlikely), the USPS would still be short on cash.
Maybe the USPS’s fiscal woes are totally symptomatic of what’s going on in society in general: Healthcare carries a huge tab and nobody wants to pay for it.
But eventually somebody’s gotta.
