Sanders Calls Postal Service Plan ‘Deeply Flawed’

WASHINGTON, Feb. 22 - Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) issued the following statement today on a consolidation plan announced by the U.S. Postal Service:

"The plan announced today by the U.S. Postal Service is deeply flawed and Congress must change it. I expect comprehensive postal reform legislation to be on the floor of the Senate within the next few weeks.

"At a time when the Postal Service is competing against the instantaneous delivery of information from email and the Internet, slowing down mail delivery service will result in less business and less revenue, and will bring about a death spiral for this institution which is so vitally important for all Americans.

"A critical weakness of the current Postal Service plan is that it ignores the onerous financial burden being placed on the Postal Service by $5.5 billion a year in pre-payments for future retiree health benefits. According to the Postal Service inspector general, those payments are no longer necessary because of the $45 billion which that account already has accumulated.

"The Postal Service needs to be reformed not by massive cuts, but by a new entrepreneurial business model which expands the products and services the post office can sell in the 21st century digital age."

To read more about an effort by a group of 27 senators calling for significant improvements" in a bill to modernize the U.S. Postal Service, click here.

To read the letter to Sanders from the Postal Service inspector general saying a big funding cushion already has been built into the mail service's health benefit funds, click here.