Postal Service financial rescue plan in works at White House

[alp227]

Source: The Washington Post

The White House will include a financial rescue plan for the U.S. Postal Service as part of a broader $1.5 trillion deficit reduction package due to Congress in the coming weeks, it said Tuesday.

In advance of those recommendations, the Obama administration is asking lawmakers to give the Postal Service a 90-day extension to pay billons of dollars in mandatory annual retirement payments that are due at the end of its fiscal year Sept. 30.

If approved, a delay would buy time for Congress, the White House and postal officials to draft a package of reforms for the cash-strapped delivery service, whose leader warned again Tuesday that it is teetering on the brink of financial collapse and likely to go broke by fall 2012.

“I’m operating right now with a week’s worth of cash,” Postmaster General Patrick R. Donahoe warned senators Tuesday. The Postal Service’s weekly costs total about $1 billion, he said.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/postal-service-financial-rescue-plan-in-works-at-white-house/2011/09/06/gIQAHEqy7J_story.html

[elleng]

1. OK w me at the moment,

but not happy to see donahoe appear to agree USPS has basic problems while minimizing effect of advanced retirement payments requirements. Union head much more straightforward on this, imo. (On Newshour earlier.)

[dennis4868]

2. shit...

the White House always has to bail out the weaklings in congress (and then take all the blame for everything from the PL and their sheeple).

[Vincardog]

3. It would help if they would quit making the Postal Service fund 50 years worth of retirement

THIS YEAR

[lonestarnot]

4. How many bonuses paid to bigshots?

[Vincardog]

6. The US Postal Service Pays NO bonuses to big shots

[lonestarnot]

7. When did that policy change?

[pa28]

9. USPS employees are pre-paying for people who have not even been born yet.

They simply need relief from that particular burden which Bush and the Republican congress imposed on them.

It's too bad we're making a "rescue" of the postal service part of a broader debt package instead of a stand alone issue. We've seen the pattern before and it makes me think the post office will be the GOP's next hostage.

[Skink]

5. Good

[RKP5637]

8. Here at the PO they just took out the smaller automated mailing self service kiosk and replaced it

with a huge affair. Haven't been up close to it yet, so don't know what all it's capable of... Service windows are now only maned(womaned) by 2 employees now where there used to be 5. The new quite large kiosk is in the main lobby which is opened for many hours since that's where the PO boxes are located.

[rhett o rick]

10. Give back to the USPS the business UPS and Fed Ex are skimming off. nm

[elleng]

11. White House to Propose Plan to Help Postal Service.

'Speaking at a Senate hearing, John Berry, director of the federal Office of Personnel Management, also said the administration would soon put forward a plan to stabilize the postal service, which faces a deficit of nearly $10 billion this fiscal year and had warned that it could run out of money entirely this winter. . .

Mr. Berry said the Obama administration would push for legislation to allow a three-month delay in the $5.5 billion payment. But he stopped short of endorsing a far-reaching proposal, backed by the postal service, to allow the agency to claw back more than $50 billion that two independent actuaries have said the post office has overpaid into a major federal pension plan. Postal Service officials say such a move would go far to alleviate the agency’s financial problems.

Mr. Berry said the administration was studying the proposal, but not endorsing or opposing it at this point.

He said the administration would release a more comprehensive proposal in coming weeks “to ensure a sustainable future for the postal service,” one that would be part of the broader $1.5 trillion deficit reduction package that the President Obama has promised to send to Congress.'

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/07/business/white-house-to-propose-plan-to-help-postal-service.html?hp

[Occulus]

12. Obama will back a plan that breaks the union's contract.

Watch.