Washington, D.C. - The Council for Citizens Against Government Waste (CCAGW) today called on the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) to abandon plans to distribute more than $200 million in executive bonuses before year's end.

"For USPS to give out hundreds of millions of dollars to its executives this year would be unconscionable," CCAGW Vice President Leslie K. Paige said.  "This agency was projecting a $1.3 billion financial loss this year even before September 11.  Now postal management is engaged in an aggressive lobbying campaign to obtain a multi-billion bailout from the taxpayers." 

"In fact, many of the postal service’s recent expenditures merit scrutiny by Congress in light of the troubling testimony postal management gave before the U.S. Senate on November 8," Paige also said.  "Aside from the $1.4 billion lost to waste, fraud and mismanagement already documented by the USPS Office of Inspector General, it is difficult to reconcile the postal service’s bailout requests with its new slick, multi-million television advertising campaign.  Also troubling is that postal management has yet to offer a single substantive proposal to streamline its operations, reduce unnecessary costs, institute a hard hiring freeze, or eliminate money-losing ventures."

"This is not the first time the USPS has given out hundreds of millions of dollars in executive bonuses while operating in the red," Paige added.  "Between 1996 and 2000, the USPS gave out more than $1.4 billion in bonuses, including $284 million last year, when it lost money." 

Earlier this year, Rep. Walter Jones (R-N.C.) introduced a sense of the House resolution to prohibit the distribution of any bonuses in years when the USPS operates at a deficit, a measure CCAGW supported.

"On behalf of its one million members and supporters nationwide, CCAGW requests USPS management wake up and smell the coffee," Paige concluded.  "You do not give yourself bonuses when your company is in crisis and asking for bailout assistance.  A private sector manager who proposed such a scheme would be laughed out of the boardroom."

CCAGW is the lobbying arm of Citizens Against Government Waste, the nation’s largest taxpayer advocacy group with over one million members and supporters nationwide.  It is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, mismanagement and abuse in government.