Reid: Postal Service move would be ‘crippling blow’

{mosads}Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe announced Thursday that the USPS would no longer distribute letters and other pieces of first-class mail on Saturdays beginning in August. Facing billions of dollars in losses, Donahoe maintained the move was necessary. Roughly 70 percent of the $15.9 billion of USPS’s losses stemmed from defaults on required prepayments for retiree healthcare.

“We cannot put our head in the sand and say, ‘Well, jeez, let’s hope this problem goes away,’ ” Donahoe said at a news conference. “Hope is not a strategy.”

The move immediately earned fierce recriminations from Democrats and unions, who argued that only Congress can alter the mail delivery schedule. For about 30 years, Congress has required six-day postal delivery by including a rider in an appropriations bill. Since Congress is technically not operating under regular appropriations legislation but instead a continuing resolution, Donahoe argued the USPS can make the move.

Republicans backed the USPS decision Thursday. House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) contended the move was a responsible step toward getting the USPS back on track.

Donahoe also continued to press lawmakers to pass a comprehensive postal reform bill, and Reid also tossed barbs at the House after such a legislative effort came up short in 2012.

“This unfortunate scenario could have been wholly prevented if the House had passed the Senate’s bipartisan postal reform bill in the last Congress,” he said.

The Senate cleared a bipartisan postal bill last April, but House Republican leaders failed to bring their preferred postal overhaul to the floor. Both parties have renewed their commitment to work toward a postal fix in the new Congress.