(Washington, D.C.) – The Council for Citizens Against Government Waste (CCAGW) today released its reaction after the sixth in a series of postal reform hearings was held today by the Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs. 

“The true state of the United States Postal Service’s (USPS) financial health is as murky and inscrutable as ever.  But one thing is clear:  the first step toward any serious postal reform must be financial transparency.  CCAGW has three important words for Congress:  audit, audit, audit,” said CCAGW Director of Special Projects Leslie Paige.  “As in the past, CCAGW is calling for a full, operational, top-to-bottom audit that would lift the lid on the postal service’s true financial state.  It would be foolhardy of Congress to embark on some of the reform ideas, as dramatic and well-advised as many of them may be, without an audit.  Not only are postal regulators and Congress in the dark, postal management itself does not even measure reams of crucial financial data because nobody requires them to.  Its regulator, the Postal Rate Commission, does not currently even have the power to compel the USPS to produce crucial information. 

“Without a complete and accurate picture of the financial operations of this $70 billion dollar behemoth, how would postal management and postal regulators begin to ‘right-size’ the operation?” asked Paige.  “Without the benefit of clear, bottom-line financials, how would Congress begin to distinguish between monopoly and so-called ‘competitive’ products, let alone be sure they are priced properly and overhead for them is correctly allocated?  Why should the USPS be permitted to liberally enter into negotiated service agreements (NSA) with favored customers when nobody knows whether these agreements are priced properly, especially when these NSAs could have such a devastating financial impact on non-favored companies operating in the private sector?  How can Congress encourage work-sharing agreements without understanding whether the USPS is pricing the discounts in a cost-effective way?  How does anyone know whether captive first-class users of the mail have indeed been cross-subsidizing dozens of money-losing commercial ventures?

“It would be an egregious error for Congress to bow to the pressure being brought by the USPS and others to cut the agency loose on private-sector entrepreneurs and small business people, especially in the fluid, dynamic world of e-commerce.  Instead, Congress ought to be drawing a bright line and getting the USPS out of competitive products altogether.  The entire reform agenda, which is ostensibly predicated upon getting the USPS to ‘behave more like a business’ should begin with getting a true picture of the postal services costs, revenues, losses and cost allocation and demanding that this wasteful, inefficient agency improve the performance of its core competency, delivering letter and advertising mail.  The first rules of business are to make sure the enterprise is both accountable and transparent, qualities the USPS lacks in abundance.  Without them, we are all flying blind.”

The Council for Citizens Against Government Waste is the lobbying arm of Citizens Against Government Waste, the nation's largest nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in government.