Is PMG Testimony an Empty Gesture?
Once again, the U.S. Postal Service is crying poverty and asking Congress for help.
This past week, Postmaster General Patrick Donohoe warned the House Subcommittee on Federal Workforce, U.S. Postal Service and Labor Policy on Oversight and Government Reform that the postal service could not survive as a self-financing entity without major changes in the law.
This is true even though the USPS expects to cut $11 billion in costs this year, Donohoe said.
That law, the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act (PAEA) of 2006, did do good things like tie annual postage increases to the (currently very low) rate of inflation and make them more predictable.
But the PAEA did do at least one very bad thing: the law requires the postal service to fork over $5.5 billion every year to prefund retiree health benefits.
Donohoe testified that without this obligation the USPS would
