By NALC President Fredric Rolando – December 2015
There has been no more damaging legacy of the 2006 Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act (PAEA) than the onerous and inflexible legislative mandate to pre-fund future retiree health benefits decades in advance. That $49-billion and-counting mandate has caused the vast majority (86 percent) of the Postal Service’s reported losses over the past nine years. It also has obscured from view the $2.9 billion in USPS operating profits recorded over the past three years (2013-2015) as the economy and the Postal Service bounced back from the Great Recession.
But the PAEA’s legacy on postage rates also is very important to understand as we work to reform the law in Congress and get ready for a major proceeding at the Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC) to establish the postal rate setting
process of the future. That proceeding is mandated by law to begin next year.
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