The House passes a major financial overhaul of the USPS

[lindysalsagal]

52. WAPO: Details: Stop the pre-funding of healthcare and bail them out

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/02/08/usps-dejoy-congress-reform/

The Postal Service is required to prepay its retirees’ health-care costs, a mandate instituted in 2006 when mail volume was steady and the agency was profitable. But decades of falling mail use have turned it into a perpetual financial loser, and the pre-funding requirement has accounted for $152.8 billion of its $206.4 billion in liabilities.

Tuesday’s legislation, advanced by leaders of both parties, wipes clean $57 billion of that amount, and will save the agency another $50 billion over the next decade. The bill installs new timely delivery transparency requirements for the Postal Service, which has struggled with on-time service since DeJoy took office, and allows the agency to contract with local, state and Indigenous governments to offer basic nonpostal services, such as hunting and fishing licenses.

The bill is the result of months of negotiations between Democrats and Republicans on the House Oversight and Reform Committee, DeJoy and the Postal Service’s powerful unions.

The liberal wing of the House Democratic caucus had pushed Maloney (D-N.Y.) to pass a broader bill that included provisions to protect mail-in voting, funding for electric vehicles and restrictions on political campaign activities for the postmaster general and members of the agency’s governing board.