MAIL: Change rule and save

The U.S. Postal Service has the ability to stand on its own. It doesn’t use a dime of taxpayer money. Outside interference by Congress to impose an impossible mandate in 2006 to pre-fund future retirees’ health benefits at the rate of $5.5 billion a year for 10 years is a problem started by Congress and can be solved by Congress. This fund has already been overfunded by $42 billion.

This crushing mandate is still in place. The recently passed U.S. Senate bill S. 1789 has good intentions to reduce the pre-funding payments and use excess pension funds to help with the financial problems but still doesn’t tackle the main problem. H.R. 2309 in the House of Representatives proposes that the unnecessary pre-funding payments stay in place while it negatively eliminates Saturday delivery of mail and closes Post Offices that so many Americans have come to depend on for quality service.

These “solutions” are not solutions: they only prolong the agony.

To me this is a no-brainer: eliminate the pre-funding payments and use the overpayments in the annuity funds. No quality service is lost. Everyone wins. Isn’t that what we all want?

JOHN PAIGE

President

Idaho State Association of Letter Carriers

Pocatello