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Postal Service Reform Act of 2021

Floor Speech

Date: Feb. 8, 2022
Location: Washington, DC

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Mr. DeFAZIO. Madam Speaker, I thank Mrs. Maloney for getting us to this point today, and I thank the ranking member also.

Postal reform has been languishing around here for more than a decade, and we are finally there. The two largest elements of this bill--one was already just mentioned by Representative Connolly, the absurd prefunding mandate that was stuck in at midnight in a conference, and no one knew it was there. It was back during the Bush administration. They were trying to kill off the Postal Service.

It said you will prepay healthcare for the next 75 years of employees. That means people who weren't even born yet, people who might go to work for the Postal Service someday, that might retire, we are prepaying their healthcare. That has been an incredible burden on the Postal Service.

Now, that is going to be fixed. We are going to do away with that. That is a bill I have carried for many years, the USPS Fairness Act. We had, actually, 277 cosponsors on that bill in this Congress. I am very pleased it was included as a key part of reform.

The other one is to have postal retirees sign up for Medicare like our Federal retirees. That saves another $23 billion.

Those two things alone will put the Postal Service solvent into the near future, and we will take other steps to increase efficiency.

The Postal Service is critical. They will go where the private sector will not go, does not want to go. I have people who live in the most remote parts of my district, very remote. They make a living on eBay and selling things. If the Postal Service wouldn't pick up their packages and wouldn't deliver their packages with that box rate, they couldn't make a living. FedEx isn't going to go out there; UPS isn't going to go out there. In fact, they dump all the stuff about 25 miles away from Powers and say: Hey, take this out to that little town. We don't want to go out that far.

It is an absolutely crucial service for tens of millions of Americans, and today, we are going to ensure its future.

Madam Speaker, I urge passage of this bill, and I thank the chair and the ranking member for their work.

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