PRC Cautions Congress On USPS DFA Plan

WASHINGTON, DC — The PRC’s Vice Chairman Robert Taub warned Congress against endorsing the USPS’ Delivering For America Plan, saying it has slowed delivery and led to billion dollar loses.

“The Commission also cautions against endorsing the Postmaster General’s plan to move full steam ahead with the Delivering for America (DFA) Plan,” Taub testified to the House Oversight Committee in June. “A plan which promised break-even operations by FY 2023 and a cumulative 10-year net income of $0.2 billion. In fact, in year 6 of the 10-year DFA Plan, the Postal Service has incurred $31 billion in losses and is on a path to lose even more in the remaining 4 years of its implementation.”

Click for Vice Chairman Taub’s Testimony

“It is a plan that promised to streamline and make more efficient the delivery of mail and parcels and save the Postal Service $28 to $40 billion, as initially estimated, yet implementation of the plan has consistently slowed mail delivery across the United States, specifically in rural areas, which to a greater extent rely on affordable and reliable mail delivery,” Taub said.

“And the mounting financial losses continue, a situation the Commission warned about on several prior occasions,” Taub said.

Critical of PMG’s Approach

Taub was also critical of the “the Postmaster General’s approach of just granting the Postal Service the freedom to operate like a “truly independent
entity” and ridding it of any regulatory or statutory requirements and hoping that will make everything better. This approach combined with the “Goldilocks Choice” can
generally be described as give us more money with less oversight.”

“The Postal Service is not an independent entity; it is a government entity with two statutory monopolies over letter delivery and mailbox access that no other private sector company or truly independent entity enjoys,” Taub said. “This is why Congress established specific (and limited) statutory and regulatory guardrails, and the Commission has implemented over the past 56 years, to protect consumers and businesses from potential monopolistic abuse, such as predatory pricing, poor service, and unfair competition …” (click to read more)