Washington, D.C.—The latest bill introduced in Congress to reform the U.S. Postal Service and help it avoid insolvency has been criticized by American Business Media, an association of trade magazine publishers, as well as by the Postal Service itself.
Legislation proposed by Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., chairman of the House Oversight Committee governing postal matters, would allow postal rate increases for underperforming products above what is currently limited by the rate of inflation. The provision “would likely result in a more than 20% increase in postal rates over the next three years for ABM members,” said Clark Pettit, ABM president-CEO, in a statement.
While Issa's bill supports eliminating Saturday mail delivery to save money, the Postal Service criticized the bill for not relieving it of having to prepay retiree health benefits totaling about $5.5 billion a year, and not permitting it to access overpayments residing in other civil service retirement plans.
