Consumer Advocate Ralph Nader Calls for the Postmaster General to Resign

Condemns Postmaster General Donahoe’s Calls for Service Cuts, Post Office Closings, Job Cuts

For More Information Contact:
Ralph Nader or Jeff Musto
202-387-8034

Consumer Advocate Ralph Nader today called for Postmaster General Donahoe’s resignation. Several consumer non-profits joined him in this letter, including Public Citizen, Consumer Action, the Gray Panthers, and Essential Information. The Postmaster General Donahoe is “actively presiding over the demise of one of our country’s greatest founding institutions,” said Nader.

In December 2011, Congressman DeFazio called for the Obama administration to fire Postmaster General Donahoe. From the House floor he said, “This guy, this so-called postmaster general, should be fired because of a lack of any imagination or initiative…He’s proposing the death knell for the great United States Postal Service.”

In his letter, Nader drew attention to the fact that, if the U.S. Postal Service was not required by Congress to prepay retiree health benefits of the next 75 years by 2012, nearly 80 percent of the USPS’s deficit would be eliminated. Nader stated that this is “an imposition unheard of in either the corporate world or by any other government agency.” He continued by pointing out that the federal government even owes the U.S. Postal Service $80 billion in overpayments that the USPS has made to two retirement funds, the Civil Service Retirement System and the Federal Employees Retirement System.

Yet, Nader notes, the Postmaster General remains virtually silent on these issues. Instead, he says, the Postmaster General makes “the case for shutting rural post offices, slashing 150,000 postal employees’ jobs, ending Saturday delivery, and extending delivery dates as if they do not produce a spiral of decline and loss of customers who will not come back.”

“In a phrase, you are not up to the job!” Nader concludes.

A full copy of the letter can be found here.