Finally, legislation proposed to reverse the absurd requirement that the US Post Office prefund its pension and benefits for 50 years has a chance to pass the Congress:
This is literally the only reason that the USPS is in dire financial straits, and this been the case for almost 15 years:
A bipartisan group of lawmakers introduced a bill to ease a major financial burden on the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) by eliminating a requirement that it fund retirement benefits decades ahead of time.
The USPS Fairness Act would do away with a 2006 law that mandated the USPS to form a $72 billion fund to pay for retirement health benefits for over 50 years, a requirement that is not imposed on any other federal agency.
The legislation was introduced in the House by Reps. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.), Tom Reed (R-N.Y.), Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.), Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.) and Colin Allred (D-Texas) and in the Senate by Sens. Steve Daines (R-Mont.) and Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii).
“The unreasonable prefunding mandate has threatened the survival of the USPS and placed at risk vital services for the millions who rely on it. The prefunding mandate policy is based on the absurd notion of paying for the retirement funds of people who do not yet, and may not ever, work for the Postal Service,” DeFazio said in a statement.
The introduction of the legislation comes as President Biden faces pressure from the biggest Postal Service union to install new USPS leadership. The department was thrust into the national spotlight late in the Trump administration for changes to mail delivery that critics said would impact the collection of mail-in ballots in a way that would benefit then-President Trump.
A similar bill to the USPS Fairness Act was passed in the House last year but languished in the GOP-controlled Senate.
Here’s hoping that this actually happens.
The original bill was an attempt to privatize the post office as a way of breaking its union, and Donald Trump used the chaos in an attempt to subvert the 2020 election.
This needs to be repealed today.