Over at Politics USA I read a report of a recent very bipartisan vote that could have significant impacts on the USPS.
The House passed legislation with a bipartisan vote that will strengthen and protect the Postal Service from insolvency.
The vote was 342-90.
The legislation had strong bipartisan support in the House, and the companion bill in the Senate has a dozen Republican co-sponsors.
Before the vote, Speaker Pelosi said in a speech on the House floor, “This legislation would put the Postal Service on stronger financial footing while improving the reliability of its services, while protecting benefits for employees and retirees. The legislation makes bipartisan, common-sense provisions that will welcome all future postal retirees into Medicare, free U.S. Postal Service from the unnecessary requirement to prefund retiree health benefits 75 years in advance and – we call that a financial albatross – and improve USPS reliability with new transparency measures that will help ensure consistent, on-time mail delivery. ”
All of which provisions run counter to the sabotage of the Post Office previously planned by Louis DeJoy.
Not reported at Politics USA, but found in the reports on this bill at Politico is DeJoy’s fulsome praise for its passage. But, if you think through what the bill actually means, there is nothing in it that supports DeJoy’s efforts to further undermine the Post Office. Getting rid of health care insurance for future retirees was central to his plans. It is easy to see why he would support that. The elimination of future pension funding cuts both ways though — cudgel to justify cost cutting, and an anvil weighing down the balance sheet. So maybe DeJoy is whistling into the wind?
“The Postal Service thanks the leadership of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform for their thoughtful, bipartisan collaboration to pass the much needed Postal Service Reform Act,” DeJoy said in a statement.
Politico also reports the Postal Workers Union welcomes the bill’s passage.
President of the American Postal Workers Union Mark Dimondstein said that he was pleased with the bill's strong bipartisan support but that Tuesday's passage was only "half the battle." Some might call it a "skinny" bill, he said, but it addresses the major issues facing the agency.
“The American Postal Workers Union fully supports the legislation,” Dimondstein said in an interview. “We think it's good for the postal public. We think it's good for the public Postal Service, and we think it's good for postal workers.”
We still need to have DeJoy ousted from the USPS Board of Governors. But, it does seem that this bill will be passing.