https://www.timesunion.com/opinion/article/Letter-Changes-can-help-U-S-Postal-Service-13445945.php
Letter: Changes can help U.S. Postal Service
Updated 7:41 pm EST, Wednesday, December 5, 2018
Regarding the editorial "Help the USPS succeed," Nov. 26, taxpayers are on the hook for more than $100 billion to the U.S. Postal Service for its unfunded liabilities and perennial operating losses. Before asking for any bailout, though, the Postal Service should push for some basic changes and self-implement others.
Unlike state pension funds, the Postal Service can only invest its pension and retiree health benefit funds in special-issue U.S. government bonds. During the historic bull market, Postal Service returns have been a mere 3 to 4 percent annually.
By contrast, the New York State Common Retirement Fund, which invests on behalf of 1 million state and local government workers, earned 11.35 percent for its 2018 fiscal year, through prudent and diversified investments.
The Postal Service should push Congress to allow it to invest as state pension funds do so that it can receive much higher returns on its more than $380 billion in retirement assets. No one starting a retirement plan today would want to be as constrained as the Postal Service is.
And while a case perhaps can be made that Congress required too much of the Postal Service in retiree health care funding, the Postal Service has not provided any funds for these investments in six years — defaulting on more than $44 billion. This amounts to playing chicken with employees' retirement money. Meanwhile, the Postal Service's balance sheet has $11 billion in cash.
Postal employees, and taxpayers, deserve better.
Paul F. Steidler
Arlington, Va.
Senior Fellow, Lexington Institute