Posted on 03/14/2014 7:29:09 PM PDT by Olog-hai
The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) currently owes $99.8 billion in benefit payments to its current and retired workers but does not have the money, and if Congress does not act to fix the problem, the Postal Service may have to “implement contingency plans to ensure that mail delivery continues,” according to a new report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO).
“At the end of fiscal year 2013,” said the GAO, “USPS had about $100 billion in unfunded liabilities: $85 billion in unfunded liabilities for benefits, including retiree-health, pension, and workers’ compensation liabilities, and $15 billion in outstanding debt to the U.S. Treasury—the statutory limit.”
“USPS continues to be in a serious financial crisis, with insufficient revenue to cover its expenses and financial obligations, a continuing decline in profitable First-Class Mail volume, increasing unfunded benefit liabilities, and borrowing limitations due to having reached its $15 billion statutory debt [borrowing] limit,” said Frank Todisco, a GAO chief actuary, in prepared testimony before the House Subcommittee on Federal Workforce, U.S. Postal Service and the Census on Mar. 13. …
(Excerpt) Read more at cnsnews.com ...
This starting to sound like a protection racket, if you give us the money we won`t shut off your service.
and a good amount of their long haul loads - airplane - are delivered by fedex and ups.
USPS is not strictly a for profit business. Congress still controls its purse strings.
UPS said our package would arrive on Wednesday but it was handed off to the USPS and will probably arrive tomorrow instead. Such awesome service, NOT!
The government acts as if unfunded benefits are somehow sacred.
Cut the benefits and then they won’t be unfunded.
Agreed. Congress operates in the red, and forces the USPS to do likewise.
Stimulating enough for me.
Tell them to look to their union fat-cat bosses for a bailout this time.
of course, they could just end the pension system immediately and it would solve all of their problems....
but its a govt entitiy....wouldn't want their sweet little workers to acutally live like the rest of us....
I guess it’s time for Obama to use his pen and phone again...
Then I suppose you do not know that the U.S. Government ceased its defined benefits retirements decades ago. They now offer a 401K type of plan (throwing in some matching sums of money, limited, though, as I understand it). The employees fund their retirements with that, personal savings, and Social Security.
Post Office Problem: People use the internet because the cost of postage is too high.
Post Office solution: Raise the cost of postage to make up their deficit.
Yeah, that’ll work. That solution had to be devised by some Democrat genius.
Fund it with cuts in federal funding to local governments.
What’s the big deal? 85 billion is only 1 month of the Feds funny money stimulus. Just shovel 1 months worth to the Post office instead of the banks. Problem solved....
That’s okay. They can’t be hurting for money. They just sponsored a free concert stage at SXSW in Austin.
Post office in action...
Sent my kid there new glasses, package went to Austin, then to New York and back to a location in Texas for delivery. Took over a week.
Efficiency is job one!
Didn’t know that. So Congress no longer gets a defined pension?
Certainly doesn’t seem to have been copied at a lot of municpalities, and probably some states, and apparently the post office.
UPS makes a profit with private sector Teamster labor.
I work there and we bust ass every minute. Management there will make sure you are working in your area full bore or will send you to an area where the labor is needed.No standing around doing nothing allowed.
USPS is a different culture than UPS.
Private sector VS. public sector.
Liberal solution: Just raise he cost of a stamp to $500 and they’ll pay the debt off in no time.
I didn’t say anything about Congress. I said that the ordinary Federal employee (except those who were “grandfathered in” but I would suppose that they are very few in number—or non-existent by now—nowadays) does not get a defined benefit pension and hasn’t for some three decades. The average Freeper has not picked up on that fact.
The Congress critters take care of themselves. Always have, always will.
And yes, municipalities and states, from what I read, still have them, especially for unionized employees. There’s the fiscal problem, right there.
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