Yesterday, the Senate overwhelmingly (79-19) passed the Postal Service Reform Act of 2022. It had passed the House 342 to 92 on February 8, all the crackpots voting no, like Marjorie Traitor Greene, Lauren Boebert, Matt Gaetz, Scott Perry, Mo Brooks, Mary Miller, Louie Gohmert, Andy Biggs, Gym Jordan, Jody Hice, Paul Gosar... you know the ones. They're against everything except tax cuts for the rich.
The NY Times called it "the most sprawling overhaul of the Postal Service in nearly two decades... The Postal Service, arguably one of the most beloved federal agencies, has been on the brink of insolvency for years, largely because of a 2006 law that requires the agency to fund retiree health care benefits for its employees in advance. In 2020, a slowdown of mail delivery and a series of operational changes before the election prompted renewed scrutiny, and Congress doubled down on efforts to reform the agency’s structure and address its financial woes. The legislation removes the retirement mandate and instead requires retired Postal Service employees to enroll in Medicare when they are eligible, a change that lawmakers and agency officials estimated would save $50 billion over a decade." Other than a few right-wing cranks, all the stakeholders seem positive about the bill-- from Louis DeJoy to the postal unions
The agency faced renewed scrutiny partly because of a series of reported mail delays ahead of the 2020 election, in which a record number of votes were cast by mail. That year, Democrats sparred with Mr. DeJoy, a megadonor who supported former President Donald J. Trump, over a series of cost-cutting measures, which were later postponed until after the election.
“Our country is pretty divided right now, let’s be honest,” Senator Rob Portman, Republican of Ohio and a key sponsor of the bill, said in a recent floor speech. “But one enduring reality about our country is that we have a post office that ties us all together, and everybody depends on that post office.”
The legislation also moves to address concerns about the agency’s continued service, after Democrats pushed back when the Postal Service issued a 10-year strategic plan last year that proposed reducing hours and lengthening delivery times. Instead, the measure that passed the Senate on Tuesday mandates a delivery standard of at least six days a week.
Portman's comment about the post office tying us all together, excluding the crackpots in the House who are against everything and the 19 nuts in the Senate today who voted against it, led by the 2 freaks from Texas, the two freaks from Florida and Ron Johnson, then freak from Wisconsin.
When I asked Alan Grayson what was wrong with Marco Rubio and Rick Scott from his own state, he said "The Post Office is so off-track that it just phased out airmail, which dated back to 1918. It is so broken, thanks to Trump appointees, that I can only hope that it is fixable now. The demented folks who just voted against reform illustrate why the terms 'Senator' and 'Senile' come from the same Latin root. They’re the nuts who think that the Post Office is a government takeover of the mail."
Tom Nelson, the Wisconsin progressive running for the Senate seat Ron Johnson is regularly disgracing told me that "It seems Ron Johnson will go out of his way to hurt his constituents. Does he not understand that for thousands of Wisconsinsites-- especially those without adequate broadband service-- mail is one of their only connections to friends and loved ones? This is to say nothing about making the world go around. He is really, really out of touch or just mailing it in...