TimesMachine is an exclusive benefit for home delivery and digital subscribers. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projects that this deficit for 2020 will be 16% of U.S. gross domestic product (GDP), which is the largest it's been since 1945. But if it really wants Congress to open the purse strings for a rescue plan, the agency needs to put its cards on the table. A United States Postal Service delivery truck. The Jakarta Post Jakarta / Wed, January 8, 2020 / 11:20 am A customer applies for membership in an office of the Health Care and Social Security Agency (BPJS Kesehatan) in Jakarta. And unlike them, they actually would fix the agency’s structural deficit, grow USPS revenue, lower its costs and alleviate its debt load. To put it into perspective, as a percentage of revenue, the post office ran a deficit of 12% of its total intake. It is the lone government agency that visits our homes and businesses on most days, and with stores largely shut down, the USPS is keeping us supplied with food, clothes, distance-schooling materials for kids, prescription drugs, and books to keep our minds off what’s happening outside our doors. Some of the people who qualify for relief checks from the IRS will receive them in their mailboxes. Post Office Ltd (Welsh: Swyddfa'r Post Cyf. -- Postmaster General Burleson issued a statement today, in which he said: View Full Article in Timesmachine », See the article in its original context from. 13 From facilitating the nation’s largest one day food drive, to working with customers to prevent dog bites, to educating customers on consumer protection, to delivering holiday cheer to those in need, the Postal Service supports communities nationwide.. 12 Veterans. President Obama entered office in early 2009 in the teeth of the Great Recession. To their credit, USPS workers have served valiantly during Covid-19; if the country gets hit with another pandemic or anthrax attack, we need the postal service to be funded and ready to deliver test kits and medicines. UPDATE: Some text in the final paragraph has been revised. CNET. The total deficit is based upon gross revenues of $67 Billion. Ultimately, the CARES Act offered only a $10 billion supplemental lending line to the postal service. Just wipe the books clean, because paying these debts is draining the Post Office’s cash, which should be invested in new delivery vehicles and overdue capital upgrades. Postal Service worker wears a face mask and gloves while crossing a downtown street in Los Angeles, California. Strangely, it is not actually required to do anything in a crisis by either postal law or Executive Order 13527, the Obama-era directive on national responses to anthrax and biohazard attacks. Unions are right to drive a hard bargain for their members, but they are aided and abetted by federal arbitrators who almost always side with the unions over management. April 16, 2018. All told, these reforms would cost American taxpayers around $16 billion — far less than the massive bailouts proposed to date. Again, demand for paper mail has plunged, and it is financially irresponsible to force mail carriers to haul mostly low-margin advertising mail more than five days per week. The law should be amended to require that collective bargaining decisions consider the financial health of the USPS. Post Office. But the story's more complex than that. Subscribers may view the full text of this article in its original form through TimesMachine. All federal pension and retirement benefits are paid from the U.S. Treasury. ; Scottish Gaelic: Oifis a' Phuist) is a retail post office company in the United Kingdom that provides a wide range of products including postage stamps and banking to the public through its nationwide network of post office branches. The deficit-to-GDP ratio set a record of 26.9% in 1943 as the country geared up for World War II. Congress also should direct the USPS to further increase prices on parcels, which USPS is free but sometimes hesitant to do. Then Congress needs to strike a grand bargain for postal reform—a deal that would both save the post office from short-term insolvency and align the agency’s revenue and costs over the long term. A U.S Postal Service Inspector General study made it clear that this investment strategy all but ensures the agency will default on these obligations to its workers and the taxpayers will have to bail them out. Public debt already is $24 trillion, so the public is not terribly harmed by assuming this additional debt — especially if it helps stave off the collapse of the USPS. The massive post office deficit that is driving management to commit institutional suicide by ending six-day delivery, closing half of the nation's 30,000 or so post offices and half its 500 mail-processing centers, and laying off more than 200,000 workers, is make-believe. There are no signs that it has done so. Presently, the agency gets no extra financial support when it serves in a crisis. All of the spending increases he has authorized since taking office have been financed by U.S. government funds. The Position of the Post Office Savings Bank and How to Deal With Its Deficit of £11, 000, 000 (Classic Reprint): Marks, Alfred: Amazon.com.au: Books POST OFFICE DEFICIT ABOUT $10,000,000; Burleson Says Exact Figures Are Not Ready, but for Nine Months It Was $8,000,000. Postal Service, which has been losing customers for almost a decade, is still struggling to right itself. Yesterday's news stated the US Post Office ran an $8 Billion deficit in 2010. Studies done some years back indicate cutting a day of mail delivery could trim $1 billion or more in USPS costs annually. With the economy already in a free fall, a shutdown of the USPS might just tip the country into a depression. The Finance Commission provides a mechanism for the Centre to compensate for revenue loss incurred by states, which is referred to as post devolution revenue deficit grant. Most federal pension dollars are invested much more broadly, and the USPS should be authorized to invest some of the more than $40 billion in its retiree health benefits fund in index funds. Us Post Office Budget Deficit. The Postal Service employs more than 97,000 military veterans and is one of the largest employers of veterans in the country. Paying its employees accounts for 80 percent of USPS’ budget. Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, right as well as one of the postal unions. The Post Office is calling for more federal cash and, again, blaming unreasonable retirement funding requirements. On one hand, it has revealed just how much we depend on the U.S. UN Secretary General António Guterres said now is "not the time" to cut funds to the WHO. The USPS should remain free to continue delivering parcels on weekends so long as it actually makes money on them. Postal Service is too big to fail. The same principle applies here: public safety is a national good, so pay the Post Office for the work the country expects it to do. The Postal Service, which employs 650,000 people, is asking for $75 billion in aid from the government, and, according to The New York Times, another $14 billion to pay off debt related to a retirement benefits program ― a whopping $89 billion total. Dropping 100,000 employees might be more cuts than USPS wants, but it can always hire new, and less expensive, replacement employees. Seventh, and finally, postal operating costs tend to go up because collective bargaining always produces agreements that raise compensation costs. The Rudd government's debt peaked at $160 billion and the Morrison Government's debt is expected to near a trillion dollars. Compared with the more than $2 trillion in Covid-19 aid enacted to date, $16 billion is a drop in the bucket. Jul 09, 2015 . Legislation already exists to make this happen, and it can be cut and pasted into the rescue package. Getty. With the stock market so low, this plan — which has support from some on the right as well as one of the postal unions — could produce huge financial returns if enacted quickly. $14,500,000 NOT EXPENDED Of Funds Appropriated for the Year -- New System Met Emergencies of the War. $14,500,000 NOT EXPENDED Of Funds Appropriated for the Year -- … The USPS should be provided with a $1 billion annual appropriation in exchange for committing to deliver medicines and other critical supplies in the event of a national disaster. Mailers dislike price increases, but done sensibly they work. “Congress had realized for some time that the post office was ... spots — but the Postal Service doesn’t make enough money on package delivery for that to make much of a dent in the deficit. Though 90 percent of its income is derived from the sale of stamps, the post office is also the largest savings bank in the country, and the largest agency with a transfer of money. The deficit should be compared to the country's ability to pay it back. How much we do not yet know, but volume may already be down 30 percent. | Mario Tama/Getty Images. So far, Congress hasn’t moved to bail it out. Deficit Trends . The Postal Service Lost $3.9 Billion Last Year Despite a $1 billion increase in revenue, unsustainable personnel costs pushed USPS' losses to such great heights. Key Takeaways The current U.S. federal budget deficit is projected to be $3.3 trillion, according to the CBO. First, Americans need a guarantee that their mail will help them get through crises like this one, and the USPS needs money to do it. This change is way overdue — USPS cannot be expected to survive if most of its overhead cost is uncontrollable, especially in an era of lower demand for mail. Which has not happened in the post office’s two-century ... of the more than $40 billion in its retiree health benefits fund in index funds. Any reform effort may have to come via the next Covid-19 legislation, which means the reforms need to be straightforward and packaged to draw support from the right and the left. The reduction could be achieved through buyouts. As late as the 1970s, Congress gave the USPS an annual public service obligation appropriation to help it cover the costs of delivering mail to every American household, no matter how remote. "It is my belief that the World Health Organization must be supported, as it is absolutely critical to the world's efforts to win the war against COVID-19." What legislators and the public know about the USPS’ financial health is little more than a few scattered data points that have appeared in news stories. (When some postal workers went on strike in 1970, President Richard Nixon called out the National Guard to fill in; the possible economic calamity was that large.). A U.S. Presently, the law limits price increases for most paper mail to the consumer price index. Full text is unavailable for this digitized archive article. Passed by a Republican-led Congress and signed into law by President George W. Bush, the PAEA gave the Postal Service new accounting and funding rules for … | Scott Heins/Getty Images. Which has not happened in the post office’s two-century history. By Dave Johnson. Latest News from. It works exactly the same for retiree pensions and benefit funds. Only a few Democrats publicly spoke up for helping the agency, and the GOP and President Donald Trump balked when a $30 billion bailout was dropped into a version of the House’s Covid legislation. Sixth, the Treasury should forgive the USPS’ present debt, which is around $10 billion. Not surprisingly, the deficit exploded from $459 billion in calendar 2008 to over $1.4 trillion in calendar 2009. Download. No doubt the USPS is hurting badly, and it could run out of cash and shut down. And in November, with the virus still on the loose in the population, millions of worried Americans will depend on the USPS to vote. On March 18, 1970, postal workers in New York City—upset over low wages and poor working conditions, and emboldened by the Civil Rights Movement—organized a strike against the United States government. It's time for the public to demand that Congress act to end the crisis. The late Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) pushed hard for this reform years ago, but was stymied by complaints from postal unions. Fourth, the postal service should be free to choose to stop delivering paper mail six days a week — once all the stimulus checks are in the public’s hands. Congress could appropriate $5 billion to the agency to use to give 100,000 of the most senior employees $50,000 buyouts tax free. The next bailout needs to match money with some long-overdue reforms. When it was on budget, the Postal Service was commonly caught up in deficit reduction squabbles, and took on obligations belonging to the Treasury. By law, the agency is supposed to file a publicly available report with the Postal Regulatory Commission when it faces a material change in its financial condition. The U.S. This is in part the fault of USPS leadership, which played its cards badly in the run-up to the recent $2 trillion Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act). Postmaster General Megan Brennan should get on Zoom and give a public presentation that shares the data on where mail volume, revenue and operating costs are and where they are headed. Fifth, the USPS needs to further reduce its compensation costs. CBS News. And as it does, it may irreparably damage an agency that for years has been running multibillion dollar deficits and weighted down by $130 billion in unfunded employee benefits. That ability is measured by the deficit divided by gross domestic product (GDP). The vast portion of mail is sent by businesses, so Covid’s stalling of the economy has cratered mail volume. Last week, USPS leadership tried again, telling the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee that the agency needed an eye-popping $75 billion to avoid going belly up. Third, the USPS should be authorized to raise its prices a little more — after the Covid-19 economic downturn ends. We all depend on it more or less, and so long as the coronavirus is around, we’ll be especially reliant on it. Postal Service. Help Save Our Public Postal Service. At the same time, the crisis is threatening to wipe out the Postal Service financially. A postman delivers mail during the coronavirus pandemic in Kings Park, N.Y. | Spencer Platt/Getty Images. Reportedly, representatives of the USPS and at least one of its unions quietly went to Capitol Hill and briefed some members of Congress, according to an individual who was in one of the meetings. In the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1989, the Postal Service won a hard-fought legislative battle, at some … Expected to post a deficit this year in excess of $8 billion, the postal service, which doesn't receive a dime of federal taxpayer subsidy, must pay the government roughly $5.5 billion annually. How George Bush broke the Post Office. On the whole, it did not go well. The Washington Post recently published an article asking if the post office should “be sold to save it.” It begins with an explanation of what the author sees as an unsustainable postal service: The U.S. So how come we're no longer talking about a "debt and deficit disaster"? Historical Data on ... CBO Report Revealed Another Large Deficit. WASHINGTON, July 4. More Democrats are calling for an emergency appropriation to the postal service, but the GOP has maintained a stony silence, likely put off by liberal activist messaging that Trump and his party want to bankrupt the post office and sell it off to vulture capitalists. When the agency’s regulator gave it a 4.3 percent “exigent rate increase” in 2015 and 2016, the post office reaped an additional $4.6 billion in revenue. Depending on the magnitude of the revenue drop-off, the agency may run out of liquidity and be forced to cease operations this autumn or winter. The strike initially involved postal workers in only New York City, but it eventually gained support of over 210,000 United States Post Office Department workers across the nation. Second, the Postal Service needs the liberty to fix the way it funds its retiree health benefits fund, which has a $70 billion shortfall. In this crisis, the postal service matters even more: Tens of millions of Americans received a postcard from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently that reminded them to socially distance and take other precautions. As every 6-year-old learns that there is real and there is make-believe. Amending the law to let the post office raise prices at the CPI plus 1 percent could bring in an additional $700 million in revenue per year. Private delivery companies move a lot of packages, but don’t go to every household in the country; often they pay the USPS to carry small packages for the final stretch. POST OFFICE DEFICIT ABOUT $10,000,000; Burleson Says Exact Figures Are Not Ready, but for Nine Months It Was $8,000,000. When it comes to the mail, the Covid-19 crisis is catching America in a vise. Here’s a straightforward plan for how it could work, which would require only modest changes to law and would share the burden between the biggest stakeholders: the public, USPS workers, and the mailers and shippers who pay the USPS’ operating costs. A crisis is being engineered to get people complaining about the "slow, inefficient" Post Office. Although it’s expected to find a way to fund these obligations, the USPS may invest only in U.S. Treasuries, which deliver paltry annual returns. On a section 179 basis – defined as the level of assets needed to secure benefits in at least in line with PPF compensation – the total deficit worsened from £12.7bn to £90.7bn. “The Purple Book gives us an in-depth understanding of the risks we face from the universe of schemes we protect,” said PPF chief risk officer Stephen Wilcox. Kevin R. Kosar is the vice president of research partnerships at the R Street Institute. comments. 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