Washington, DC – The Coalition for a 21st Century Postal Service (C21), an organization of the private sector mailing industry, today announced support for S. 2629, Postal Reform Act of 2018.

“C21 is very pleased that a bipartisan group of Senators has introduced the Postal Reform Act of 2018,” said Art Sackler, Manager of the Coalition. “It would go a long way toward fixing the broken finances of the Postal Service, and ensure it will continue to deliver each year, as the public expects, the nearly 150 billion mail pieces that support our economy and the postal system.”

C21 has very strongly supported the similar Postal Reform Act of 2017, HR 756, and its bipartisan sponsors in the House, and plans to do everything it can to secure passage of S. 2629 before a very urgent financial problem for USPS becomes dire later this year.

The Postal Service is bleeding red ink profusely through no fault of its own; most of the red ink comes from a requirement to pre-fund 75 years’ worth of retiree health liabilities, costing $10s of billions. S. 2629 addresses that problem without resort to taxpayer dollars, responding to a key concern in the House about H.R. 756. If legislation does not pass, the Postal Regulatory Commission is poised to permit the Postal Service to recover those $10s of billions through higher postage, including letting the price of a stamp rise to 64 cents over five years, with similar or higher increases for the businesses that contribute more than 90% of the revenues the self-sustaining (no taxpayer dollars) system generates.

The bill also addresses concerns about mail service, which is vital to rural areas throughout the country, and important everywhere else.

“Absent this or a similar fix, mailers will be driven to avoid the mail or even, in some cases, close down,” added Sackler. “For a postal system that has 30% less business than just a decade ago, further big losses would either mean a multi-billion-dollar taxpayer bailout or a radical shrinking of the system. Neither is good for America.”