Orlando, FLA. – At a Monday afternoon press conference here, Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) joined a coalition of taxpayer and consumer groups to denounce the U.S.  Postal Service’s next proposed rate increase.  The Post Office, holding its National Postal Forum here this week, is going to petition to hike mail costs after the recent announcement it will lose over $2 billion this year.

“The Post Office is one of the most wasteful and bloated operations in America,” CAGW Vice President Leslie Paige said.  “Prices continue to rise while service and efficiency deteriorate.  If it were truly a private business, as it pretends to be, it would have gone Chapter XI years ago.  The only thing propping it up is its special breaks from the government and its monopoly status.”

Since 1980, despite falling postal demand, the Post Office has increased its size by 36 percent, making its total workforce over 900,000.  Meanwhile, despite large outlays on technology, USPS’s productivity is expected to be an anemic 0.7 percent.

“This is the top-heavy, bricks-and-mortar bureaucracy that now wants to merge onto the Information Superhighway, and bring its lightning-fast efficiency and innovation to E-commerce,” Paige added.  “Once on the Information Superhighway, they will probably use their regulatory authority to prevent anyone from getting in the passing lane.”

Members of the Ad Hoc Coalition Against the Postal Rate Increase include representatives of: Citizens Against Government Waste, the Cato Institute, Americans for Tax Reform, 60 Plus, PostalWatch, the National Center for Public Policy Research, and Citizens for a Sound Economy.

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