Government affairs

On April 8, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee held a hearing to discuss the White House’s Fiscal Year 2015 budget request. The hearing focused on a set of proposals put forward once again by the Obama administration that were originally developed during the Biden-Cantor deficit reduction talks back in 2011 and that have appeared in all four budgets released since that time. The NALC has lobbied extensively that these proposals, many of which are similar to those contained in Committee Chairman Darrell Issa’s (R-CA) H.R. 2748, do not offer a real solution to the Postal Services financial challenges.

The proposals put forward by the administration include calling for the end of Saturday mail delivery and for allowing the Postal Service to “begin shifting to centralized and curbside delivery where appropriate.” It also seeks to make permanent the 4.3 percent exigent postal rate increase enacted in January, an increase that the Postal Regulatory Commission had set to expire in two years.

“The Administration’s proposals fail to address the main source of the Postal Service’s problems and directly threaten nearly 100,000 good postal jobs at a time when the Postal Service’s finances have rebounded strongly,” said NALC President Rolando. “Congress should focus on unchaining USPS from the retiree health pre-funding burden and freeing the agency to grow and innovate. All of the discussions this week on job-killing budget proposals that degrade or dismantle our invaluable postal networks are not the conversation we should be having.”