(Washington, D.C.) – Today, the Council for Citizens Against Government Waste slammed a Senate Bill 1789, proposed by Sens. Scott Brown (R-Mass.), Tom Carper (D-Del.), Susan Collins (R-Maine), and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), for once again delaying crucial United States Postal Service (USPS) reforms and delaying the closures of 3,700 post offices and 250 mail processing facilities across the country. 

The bill, titled the 21^st Century Postal Service Act, which was altered before it reached the Senate floor, would reduce the number of possible processing facility closures from 252 to 125, add several complex requirements to the process for post office closings, and require USPS to wait two years before stopping Saturday mail delivery.  In addition, the Postal Service would receive an $11 billion cash infusion drawn from overpayments made in previous years to a federal retirement fund. 

Unfortunately for USPS, time is running out faster than lawmakers appear ready to acknowledge.  USPS recorded losses of $8.5 billion in fiscal year (FY) 2010 and $5.1 billion in FY 2011.  The 2011 loss would have been dramatically larger if Congress had not postponed $5.5 billion in scheduled payments to prefund USPS’ retiree health benefits.  An April 12, 2010 report by the Government Accountability Office stated that the USPS business model “is not viable due to USPS’s inability to reduce costs sufficiently in response to continuing mail volume and revenue declines.”  Decreased demand has resulted in dwindling incomes; first class mail, which makes up more than half of USPS revenue, peaked in 2006, and fell 20 percent over the next four years.  On April 22, 2010, former PMG John Potter announced that the USPS will lose $238 billion over the next 10 years.

“In today’s Portland Daily Sun, Sen. Collins acknowledged that the Postal Service ‘is in danger of dying,’ and yet she and her co-sponsors have proposed legislation that bends over backward to stall serious reform that would restore the Postal Service’s viability and prevent an unpopular taxpayer bailout,” said CAGW President Tom Schatz.  “As people increasingly communicate and pay bills electronically, the role of the Postal Service has diminished.  As a result, the size and scope of USPS must shrink.  To postpone the termination of Saturday delivery and the shutdown of extraneous postal facilities, both of which would save the Postal Service billions, is to doom the Postal Service to bankruptcy and failure.” 

In a November 21, 2011 speech before the National Press Club, Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe pointed out that “roughly 25,000 out of our 32,000 Post Offices operate at a loss.”  He added that thousands of Post Offices have less than $20,000 in annual revenue yet cost more than $60,000 to operate, and many of these unprofitable locations are a few miles away from another Post Office.  He bemoaned the response to even the slightest effort to close any Post Office, as well as interference in other proposals to address the USPS deficit.

“When your boat is sinking, you don’t stand around debating how to get rid of the water,” added Schatz.  “You grab the biggest bucket you can find and start bailing.  Lawmakers need to know that they will be held accountable if taxpayers are forced to finance this rescue.”       

Citizens Against Government Waste is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, mismanagement and abuse in government.