(Reuters) - Hours before the
Postal Service's expected first-ever default on an obligation, senators blasted
the Republican-led House of Representatives for not advancing legislation to
overhaul the cash-strapped service before a month-long recess.
The mail agency, which relies on
the sale of stamps and other products rather than taxpayer dollars, confirmed
this week that it could not make a $5.5 billion payment for future retiree
health benefits that is due by midnight on Wednesday.
Lawmakers have said for more than
a year that they would overhaul the struggling agency and help it avoid a
default.
The Senate passed a bipartisan
bill in April. But the House plans to leave at the end of this week until after
the September 3 Labor Day holiday without voting on postal legislation.
"Changes are needed now, but
we cannot move forward without action by the House of Representatives,"
Republican Senator Susan Collins said in a statement on Wednesday. She and the
other three authors of the Senate bill urged the House to act.
"Failure to act is
irresponsible and only ensures that the financial free fall of the Postal
Service will continue."
Defaulting on the payment, which
goes into a fund for retiree benefits years from now, will not disrupt mail
delivery, prevent USPS employees and suppliers from being paid or stop benefits
for current retirees, the Postal Service said.
But lawmakers, mailing industry
lobbyists and other observers have said default would signal to businesses that
Congress is not serious about fixing the Postal Service and could speed efforts
to find alternatives to mail.
The Postal Service has been
losing billions of dollars each year as the shift to email and online bill
payment causes mail volumes to fall and the retiree health payment and other
obligations drain its cash.
The health payment was initially
due last September but was delayed by Congress. The Postal Service expects to
miss this year's payment at the end of September and could face a cash
shortfall of about $100 million in mid-October.
The Postal Service has already
taken steps to cut costs, including offering buyouts, consolidating activities
at processing facilities and reducing post office hours.
But shortfalls are predicted
again starting in the spring of 2013. The Postal Service says it needs to end
Saturday mail, reduce its workforce significantly, raise some prices and stop
making the payments for future retiree benefits.
The Senate bill would take some
of those steps, allowing the agency to dip into a retirement fund surplus to
offer retirement incentives to workers, ending Saturday mail after two years
and spreading out the prefunding payment over more years.
Senators and many House Democrats
have pushed for the House to vote on that bill. House Republican leaders say
the bill would buy the Postal Service more time, not solve its problems.
SLOW GOING
The leading House bill, from
House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, would keep the prefunding
payments, end Saturday mail and establish oversight groups to cut costs and
close USPS facilities.
Some Democrats have said the bill
would not get enough votes to pass because many rural lawmakers from both
parties oppose ending Saturday mail and closing post offices. Others said the
House has been distracted by votes on divisive political issues in the months
leading up to the November election.
"Republicans in the House of
Representatives have managed 30-odd votes on repealing health care reform and
dozens more protecting the interests of Big Oil and Wall Street, yet they have
not found time to ease the pressure on USPS," Representative Rosa DeLauro,
a Democrat, said in a statement.
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor
said last week that he was continuing to work with Issa on his bill.
Issa blamed the impending default
on the mail agency on Tuesday, saying it failed to cut costs aggressively
enough.
"The default by the Postal
Service on its obligation to its own employees and retirees follows decades of
mismanagement, and a willful blindness to fundamental changes in America's use
of mail," he said in a statement.
Source : http://in.news.yahoo.com
No comments:
Post a Comment