Postal Reform Legislation

Floor Speech

Mr. CRAWFORD. Mr. Speaker, in fiscal year 2011, the United States Postal Service brought in $65.7 billion in revenue but spent $70.6 billion. When counting a $5.5 billion mandatory payment to fund retiree health benefits, which they would have defaulted on already were it not for the extensions on the payment, the postal service ran a deficit of $10.6 billion.

In an attempt to cut costs, the postal service has announced that it's considering closing over 3,600 post offices, the large majority of which are rural. By the postal service's own numbers, they would only save $200 million annually if they were to close each of these post offices.

This is kind of like asking a family of four that makes $65,700 a year and adds $10,600 in credit card, and then only cuts $200 from their annual budget to get their finances under control.

Last month I visited the Grubbs and Sedgwick post offices, two of the 100 post offices that are being considered for closure in my rural district. Residents in both towns told me about the important role that their post office plays in their communities.

In order to prevent the post office from unfairly targeting rural communities, I recently introduced H.R. 3370, the Protecting our Rural Post Offices Act of 2011. The legislation would prevent the postal service from closing any post office that does not have an alternate post office within 8 miles driving.

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