Chaffetz calls Postmaster General’s retirement package ‘ridiculous’

Chaffetz calls Postmaster General’s retirement package ‘ridiculous’ | The Daily Caller - Breaking News, Opinion, Research, and EntertainmentRep. Jason Chaffetz called the $5.5 million retirement package for outgoing Postmaster General John Potter absurd and unfair in the wake of the United States Postal Service’s announcement that it had lost $8.5 billion this year. “That was ridiculous,” Chaffetz said in a phone interview with The Daily Caller. “It doesn’t seem fair to anybody.”

The congressman from Utah is the ranking Republican member on the Subcommittee on Federal Workforce, Postal Service, and District of Columbia. He has been working with California Rep. Darrell Issa, the ranking Republican member of the Oversight Committee, on “introducing a comprehensive postal reform bill,” he said.

Chaffetz called the USPS’s accounting of retirement funds “part of the reason that they’re so upside down financially.” He also cited the way in which the USPS does workers’ compensation as another issue.

“They have to pre-fund this at levels that others do not,” Chaffetz pointed out. As far as a solution goes, Chaffetz said, “We’re still trying to sort all that out,” saying that everything should “be on the board.”

The financial situation of the USPS is precarious, and the threat of a taxpayer bailout for the constitutionally mandated Postal Service looms.