Talk:Postal Regulatory Commission

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Philately Low‑importance

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This article is written in American English, which has its own spelling conventions (color, defense, traveled) and some terms that are used in it may be different or absent from other varieties of English. According to the relevant style guide, this should not be changed without broad consensus.

Changes under PAEA[edit]

The following text was in the article, sourced to the text of the PAEA law. I removed it because I found nothing in that source to support this:

It required the Postal Service to fund within 10 years the pensions for all employees for 75 years.

The following was just added:

PAEA also obligates the USPS to prefund 75-year's worth of future health care benefit payments to retirees within a ten-year time span — a requirement that no other government organization is subject to. As a consequence, it has been charged that the US Postal Services budget crisis of 2011 is, in essence, an artificial one.

The source is a blog-like article on the thinkprogress.org website. I'm not sure that that is reliable source, and I still don't see this supported in the full text of the law. This is from the official summary:

Section 803 - Transfers responsibility for paying the government's contribution of the health benefits of postal annuitants, effective in FY2017, from the Postal Service to the Postal Service Retiree Health Benefits Fund (established by this section) up to the amount contained in the Fund, with any remaining amount to be paid by the United States Postal Service. Establishes in the Treasury the Postal Service Retiree Health Benefits Fund, to be administered by OPM. Requires the Postal Service, beginning in 2007, to compute the net present value of the future payments required and attributable to the service of Postal Service employees during the most recently ended fiscal year, along with a schedule if annual installments which provides for the liquidation of any liability or surplus by 2056. Directs the Postal Service, for each year, to pay into the above Fund such net present value and the annual installment due under the amortization schedule. Makes OPM actuarial computations subject to PRC review.

2007 to 2056 is not 10 years, but 63 years. Also, there are no references to "75" or "seventy-five" in the full text of the law, nor to the year 2068 (2007 + 75 years), or 2067 or 2069 for that matter.

But all that is doing a little WP:OR from a primary source, so we shouldn't say anything about this in the article, unless it is also sourced to a secondary source. I'd like to see a source that makes this claim and quotes from the actual law to back it up. Otherwise, this looks like a misrepresentation based on a misunderstanding to me, not to mention the epitome of why we should use reliable sources. I'll let it sit for now, giving thinkprogress.org the benefit of the doubt for a day or two. But if it's not sourced better soon, or revised to something supported by actual reliable secondary sources, it needs to go. --Born2cycle (talk) 23:50, 6 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The source I linked to at Think Progress has links to a number of primary sources. When I can, I'll see if I can link through to them to verify and provide stronger sources for the article. OldSkoolGeek (talk) 22:53, 7 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

If you google for "usps pre-funding" you will find lots of reputable sources that re-iterate the 10-year pre-funding mandate described by the ThinkProgress link. e.g. [1] [2] [3] [4] I haven't seen any sources that explain this with reference to the text of the law, but unfortunately such a level of legal explication is rare in non-specialized sources. — Steven G. Johnson (talk) 02:19, 31 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Unfortunately, the above four sources are either editorials or interviews/quotes from union representatives. Reputable sources, maybe, but none an authoritative determination of the issue. In fact, the third reference describes 80 percent of future health costs instead of 100. This GAO link seems to be a good start: [5] Danchall (talk) 16:09, 6 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

What's up with Born2cycle's math? Regardless of what the Postal Accountability Act says or doesn't say, or what anyone's analysis of what the law actually means, surely 2007 to 2056 is 49 years, not 63 years. And surely 75 years after 2007 is 2082, not 2068.

I, too, would like to know what the Act really requires of the USPS (without resorting to possibly biased sources) -- and I admit that I don't have the time to research this on my own (that's why I came to this Wikipedia article in the first place) -- but surely we can all at least do simple arithmetic??? Captain Quirk (talk) 06:53, 8 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

One more thing (as Lt. Columbo would say).... "schedule if [sic] annual installments" should be "schedule of annual installments". (For what it's worth, the [apparently typographical] error appears in the Official Summary itself. It's not the fault of the Wikipedian who copied-and-pasted it here.) It's only one letter off, but it sure makes the long sentence confusing. Captain Quirk (talk) 07:07, 8 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Commission membership composition[edit]

I would hope that some editor with the time would update this page. Commissioners are shown as incumbents, though their terms noted on the page have expired. Activist (talk) 17:20, 12 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Under the law, Commissioners can serve up to one year in a "hold over" capacity - that is why the terms appear to have expired. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.79.60.224 (talk) 01:42, 28 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]