Congress passes bill to shore up Postal Service without cutting back on delivery : NPR
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
March 8, 20227:29 PM ET
The Associated Press
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A worker carries a large parcel at the Postal Service sorting and processing facility Nov. 18, 2021, in Boston. Congress passed a bill on Tuesday to lift onerous budget requirements that have helped push the Postal Service deeply into debt. Charles Krupa/AP file photo hide caption
toggle caption Charles Krupa/AP file photo
A worker carries a large parcel at the Postal Service sorting and processing facility Nov. 18, 2021, in Boston. Congress passed a bill on Tuesday to lift onerous budget requirements that have helped push the Postal Service deeply into debt.
Charles Krupa/AP file photo
WASHINGTON — Congress on Tuesday passed legislation that would shore up the U.S. Postal Service and ensure six-day-a-week mail delivery, sending the bill to President Joe Biden to sign into law.
The long-fought postal overhaul has been years in the making and comes amid widespread complaints about mail service slowdowns. Many Americans became dependent on the Postal Service during the COVID-19 crisis, but officials have repeatedly warned that without congressional action it would run out of cash by 2024.
"The post office usually delivers for us, but today we're going to deliver for them," said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.
Congress mustered rare bipartisan support for the Postal Service package, dropping some of the more controversial proposals to settle on core ways to save the service and ensure its future operations. Last month, the House approved the bill, 342-92, with all Democrats and most Republicans voting for it. On Tuesday, the Senate sent it to Biden's desk on a 79-19 vote.
Republican Sen. Jerry Moran said the Postal Service has been in a "death spiral" that is particularly hard on rural Americans, including in his state of Kansas, as post offices shuttered and services were cut. "Smart reforms were needed," he said.
The Postal Service Reform Act would lift unusual budget requirements that have contributed to the Postal Service's red ink and would set in law the requirement that the mail is delivered six days a week, except in the case of federal holidays, natural disasters and a few other situations.
Postage sales and other services were supposed to sustain the Postal Service, but it has suffered 14 straight years of losses. Growing workers' compensation and benefit costs, plus steady declines in mail volume, have contributed to the red ink, even as the Postal Service delivers to 1 million additional locations every year.
The bill would end a requirement that the Postal Service finance workers' health care benefits ahead of time for the next 75 years, an obligation that private companies and federal agencies do not face.
Instead, the Postal Service would require future retirees to enroll in Medicare and would pay current retirees' actual health care costs that aren't covered by the federal health insurance program for older people.
Gone for now are ideas for cutting back on mail delivery, which had become politically toxic. Also set aside, for now, are other proposals that have been floated over the years to change postal operations, including those to privatize some services.
Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del., reminded his colleagues of the origins of the nation's postal service as a way to unify the young country, and of its importance today to deliver cards, letters and a growing list of goods to American households.
Voters rely on the post office to deliver government checks, prescription drugs and many goods purchased online but ultimately delivered to doorsteps and mailboxes by the Postal Service.
"We need to save our Postal Service," said Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, a chief architect of the bill. Portman said the bill is not a bailout, and no new funding is going to the agency.
Criticism of the Postal Service peaked in 2020, ahead of the presidential election, as cutbacks delayed service at a time when millions of Americans were relying on mail-in ballots during the first year of the COVID-19 crisis.
At the time, President Donald Trump acknowledged he was trying to starve the Postal Service of money to make it harder to process an expected surge of mail-in ballots, which he worried could cost him the election.
Dominated by Trump appointees, the agency's board of directors had tapped Louis DeJoy, a major GOP donor, as the new postmaster general. He proposed a 10-year plan to stabilize the service's finances with steps like additional mail slowdowns, cutting some offices' hours and perhaps higher rates.
To measure the Postal Service's progress at improving its service, the bill would also require it to set up an online "dashboard" that would be searchable by ZIP code to show how long it takes to deliver letters and packages.
The legislation approved by Congress is supported by Biden, the Postal Service, postal worker unions and others.
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I have not seen the final language on the bill. I'll be looking for that today. It doesn't address some of the damage that Dejoy has done with closing some Post Offices, including some in rural areas.
Link to the bill -
I do wish Biden would speed up DeJoy's ouster. It is tough when the saboteur is in charge of what he wants to sabotage.
Like Putin?
Ummmmm, huh?
Good news for a change on the PO. I have friends that live in a very rural and their small PO was closed which has created problems for them. The small communities rely on the PO, it was never designed to be a profit center it is a service center for Americans.
yup. I get my meds from VA via mail. I can only imagine how much more difficult that would be if I lived in a rural area. In fact I will be moving to a rural area (a 60 to 75 minute drive from work) at some point in the future.
Make sure that they have PO close by.
They could cut back Saturday service. All the PO brings me is pain anyway
eliminate 2nd, 3rd, and 4th class postage, aka junk mail, and make those companies pay full price for postage.
The first thing that needs to be done is to fire that Trump enabling pos DeJoy. He also needs to be ordered to pay for new sorting machines he had destroyed in attempt to delay the mail in ballots.
Let's see proof of that.
Here ya go, Sean.
.
heh, why bother...
I always try to help the uninformed.
Thank you for posting those links. I am pretty sure Sean told me I was wrong. I can't see his comment as he is on ignore.
He wanted proof, so that is what I gave him.
He wanted proof, so that is what I gave him
Sure you did. Where are the indictments? If you could prove what Paula claimed people would be in jail. But they aren't, because she's peddling a left wing conspiracy that had no basis in reality.
Did you read your links? There's nothing in them about an attempt to destroy sorting machines to delay ballots. All they show is Democrats freaking out about a routine process. No evidence whatsoever about a conspiracy.
Take off your tinfoil hat. The machines that were decommissioned were part of a plan put in place before Dejoy's arrival and were part of process that had been going on for years because of the fall off in mail.
The idea that there was some conspiracy to delay mail in ballots is just another attempt by Democrats to undermine confidence in elections.
Ahhh, poor snowflake I gave you the proof that you asked for.
LOL, the only tinfoil hat is the one stuck on your head, Sean.
The machines are gone not to be replaced. Deal with it.
Perhaps you can post another article on the Proudboys...LOL
Wow, that is some stupid shit, Sean. You do realize that Trump and many of his followers have been claiming that the elections were stolen from him with massive cheating by the dems for over a year...
Carry on, you're comments are comic magic.
I think that deep down, Sean's point is that no one can prove DeJoy deliberately sabotaged the sorting machinery
to influence the election, for all we know it was just the beginning of DeJoy's mad plot to crush the PO and sell it
off to the highest bidder, in which he holds a lot of stock.
Normal greed, sanctioned by a POTUS no less.
No proof, just terrible optics to normal thinking people.
Oh, poor snowflake who gets pissy when his misinformation gets pointed out.
I can see why you are embarrassed, but there's no need to lash out.
he machines are gone not to be replaced. Deal with i
What are you going on about now? Why would they be? Numbers were being reduced well before Dejoy became postmaster general because the volume of mail has drastically fallen off. Why would I, or anyone else want them replaced?
. You do realize that Trump and many of his followers have been claiming that the elections were stolen from him with massive cheating by the dems for over a yea
well, that's a blatant deflection. At least put some effort into it.
Not " prove" but no has provided any evidence that Dejoy deliberately sabotaged the sorting machinery to delay vote by mail.
Again, the removal of machines was planned before he took over. Do you think he's masterminded the plot while a private citizen?
Anyone who pays the slightest bit of attention to what happened understands how preposterous this conspiracy was. But facebook memes are popular for a reason, I guess.
No lashing out Sean, more of pointing out something to you and in the process making fun of you which is pretty easy to do.
Actually, it wasn't a deflection at all it was responding to this incredibly stupid comment by you. Did you forget that you posted it?
Who's on first Sean?
Sure it's easy when all you do is offer uninformed insults. Constructing arguments based on facts takes a little more skill, which is no doubt why you rely on the former.
Why don't you look up what a deflection is and get back to me. If you still don't understand, I'll walk you through why your post is a textbook example.
Lol.. After you posted "T he machines are gone not to be replaced. Deal with it." Figure out what you are talking about.
I look forward to another post where you fail to provide any proof that DeJoy removed machines to delay vote processing.
Thanks for agreeing with me, was it painful? Absolutely no comment would have been better than that one.
True but after DeJoy took over in May 2020 the USPS increased the bar code machine dismantling from 5% to 13% while the POTUS was waging a war against mailing ballots? DeJoy was in charge equals DeJoy gets blamed,that's the way it works in partisan politics, right?
Taking sorting machines offline was bad optics during an election year,
even they were planned to be reassembled somewhere else in the future.
Not that preposterous at all if you were objective...
I would not know about Face Book memes or if they are "popular",
I guess I will have to pass on that comment.
My bet's on Jeff Bezos
DeJoy is a Trump puppet and would have done anything to please his master. There was no credible reason for him to destroy the sorting machines except to help slow down the mail in ballots.
And you're saying that all I do is offer uninformed insults.....Pot kettle Sean.
Pot kettle again Sean.
Ya think that good old boy Mark could be lying...Naw, not possible.
Again who is on first?
Thankfully I have cut my reliance on the US Postal service to a bare minimum.
Believe only my tax information and jury duty summons is sent to me through the postal service. I have no control over that. Luckily all of the tax information is available online; and I can print it up for my tax consultant. Otherwise I would still be waiting for the postal service to get me my last mutual fund statement for filing.
I have given all of my forever stamps to my mother. She is not computer literate; and has to rely on the Postal Service. I get to deal with the aftermath when her credit card, cable bill, or house payment gets lost for two week or three weeks going from Michigan to Ohio. Luckily my name is also on her credit card (her idea not mine); so I have access to her account online. I have learned to check on her payment due date. If it is not posted by close of business I get it paid. That way whenever the postal service finally gets it there it will be credited to her account. It has only happened 3 or 4 times. I am now on her cable bill as well. If she ever puts me on her home loan I am moving to the Canary Islands and changing my identity.