Justin Bullock, FISM News
During the 2020 presidential election controversy hit in one of the most unexpected of places, the United States Postal Service. Democrats expressed concerns about the ability of the US Post Office to effectively and timely deliver the millions of mail-in-votes tallied in the 2020 election. These concerns led to a thorough look into the policies and practices of the US Post Office including the testimony of Postmaster General, Louis DeJoy, before the US Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. Of particular note, the investigation resulted in the observation that the Post Office was substantially strapped for cash and even potentially on the verge of bankruptcy.
Now, Senators Gary Peters (D-Michigan) and Rob Portman (R-Ohio) have introduced a bill to the Senate known as the Postal Service Reform Act of 2021 or H.R. 3076. The bill was originally introduced in the House of Representatives by Representative Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) and it has initially achieved bi-partisan support. David Shepherdson at Reuters reports that,
“[t]he legislation would eliminate a requirement that USPS pre-fund retiree health benefits for 75 years and would require postal employees to enroll in the Medicare government-retiree health plan. Instead, USPS would pay a small, yearly “top-up” payment to address actual annual retiree costs.
CNN also reports that,
The legislation would also require USPS to continue delivering at least six days a week, require the publication of data on the Postal Service website and report to Congress every six months on finances and operations.
Republican and Democratic legislators say that the bill will help the US Post Office save approximately $45 billion over the next ten years. A spokesperson for the Post Office told the press on Wednesday, “[the US Post Office is] encouraged to see the introduction of bipartisan, bicameral postal reform language… [if passed, it] will be a major step forward for financial sustainability of the Postal Service.” At a time when bi-partisanship is hard to come by and the productivity of Congress is put into question, this bill and potentially others may indicate a hopeful way forward.