Postmaster General Got Huge Pay Bump While Simultaneously Calling for Cuts in Delivery

The price of a stamp will go up 2 cents in May. The Postmaster General has proposed reducing postal delivery to five days a week. And he gets compensated (if the Washington Times is correct) $800,000 in pay, benefits, and perks.

The changes, approved by the Postal Board of Governors and contained in a little-noticed regulatory filing in December, brought Mr. Potter's total compensation and retirement benefits to more than $800,000 in 2008. That is more than double the salary for President Obama.

The new compensation package, much of it deferred to later years, goes beyond a newly beefed-up salary, now $263,575, that Congress arranged for him as part of a 2006 law to make top postal salaries more competitive with those in the private sector. At least four other postal officials got more than a quarter-million dollars in total compensation in 2008, according to Postal Service records reviewed by The Washington Times.

This misses the point. There are no comparable postal salaries in the private sector because it is illegal in this country for private companies to infringe on the postal service's monopoly. The post office, bless their hearts, tries so hard but suffers from having to please someone other than the customer and shareholder. That is, having to please Congress.

posted by Gabriel Malor at 04:25 PM

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