White House To Unveil Plan To Aide In USPS Financial Crisis

The White House is planning to unveil a plan to help a struggling United States Postal Service bounce back from its current financial crisis, Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) said Tuesday.

“President Obama will soon offer an Administration plan to respond to the fiscal crisis at the Postal Service,” Lieberman said. “But for me, we must act quickly in the Senate to protect the future of the Postal Service.”

Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe made an appearance before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs to urge lawmakers to grant the U.S. Postal Service the authority to close post offices, change delivery schedules and layoff hundreds of thousands of workers.

“Without legislative change this year, the Postal Service faces default, as available liquidity at the end of this month will be insufficient to meet our financial obligations,” Donahoe said in his prepared remarks.

Donahoe argued that because the amount of mail the USPS processes has dipped 22 percent since 2007, the service will likely lose $10 billion in revenue in FY 2011 alone. Additionally, if legislative action is not taken by the end of September, the service will default on the $5.5 billion in mandatory labor fees for retirees.

“The way people work, interact, learn, communicate, do business, and live their daily lives is vastly different than it was for our parents and even for many of us,” Donahoe said. “The Postal Service has a place in this new world, but getting there requires us to change and adapt in ways that might not have been thought of before.”

However, one proposal to restructure the postal service’s existing healthcare and pensions programs was met with opposition, specifically from the Office of Personnel Management.

“OPM believes the postal service and its employees and retirees are well-served by the existing benefits program and retirement system,” OPM director John Berry told lawmakers at Tuesday’s hearing.

The USPS is looking for Congress to act granting the service with the authority to implement these proposed changes prior to the end of FY2011 on Sept. 30.