necessitates that we look at not only the business model but we look about how we are going to drive not only increasing revenues or stabilizing in this case stabilizing revenues for the postal service but also cutting costs and i deeply appreciate  i think the bipartisan approach to making sure the postal service is as effective and as efficient as we can possibly be i think the unions have actually done a fairly decent job along the way to work with management to downsize where it has been necessary some would argue that we probably need to go deeper and further and those discussions i know will be ongoing and again while i do not want to diminish the discussion about the need to become more efficient and more effective we need to also become realistic in that we have a high fixed cost at the postal service when eighty percent of your expense is in labor that is a fixed expense that is rather high now the postal service has capacity the problem is we are not filling that capacity we are not maximizing that capacity along the way so from a business model when you have high fixed costs and you have a capacity and volume that is not being fulfilled the last thing you want to do is just cut services and raise rates that is not going to drive volume i think one of the challenges for the postal service moving into two thousand and twelve and beyond is how does the postal service become more relevant without stepping on the toes of those in the private sector there are a unique set of circumstances and services that can be offered only by the postal service and i want to see that continue to be expanded so i offer an amendment here that gives some flexibility to the postal service and yet does not diminish the service that they would offer to all americans because long gone are the days that grandma is just writing the kids that is not what drives the volume of the postal service it is a commerce tool so in my district i have for instance ebay and some of the financial services organizations who really do depend upon their ability to get goods to the consumers in a timely and efficient way so this amendment that i offer here today mister chairman says we are going to give some flexibility to the postal service to allocate up to twelve additional i call them postal holidays twelve days in a calendar year that maybe nobody is going to quite miss the mail on that particular day but i think to suggest that we are just going to simply eliminate saturday services across the board we are going to eliminate fifty two days that isnt smart business you are going to really eliminate the saturday delivery before mothers day are we really going to get rid of that saturday delivery before valentines day that might fall on a sunday or monday are we really going to get rid of that saturday delivery right before christmas no that is not good business that is not smart so what we want to do is give maximum flexibility to the postal service and what i am suggesting here with my amendment is to say maybe we should try this with twelve days now i am actually going to withdraw this amendment at this time i have some assurances from my leadership in chairman issa i appreciate working with him and chairman  your idea of finding an interim solution and ultimately making sure that the priority of the post office is on savings with service this is an intriguing idea i know that we have talked about some ideas that will be in and i think that i want to work with all those involved but lets also remember it is incumbent upon us to enable and really demand of the postal service that we look at the relevancy of the postal service it is a great business tool it is a competitive advantage for the united states of america there can be more that we can do with this and we need to explore all different types of options one other one chairman that i will mention real quick in closing here is the cross functionality with other portions of the federal government if you look at what fema is doing to try to recreate what they have to do in terms of mapping and delivery of medicines if there were some natural disaster if you look at what the census did they had to go out and recreate all this thing and go hire hundreds of thousands of people we already had a postal service in place so we need to look at the cross functionality as well but at this time mister chairman i appreciate the indulgence of looking here at my amendment i am going to withdraw it at this time and then we will come back with an adjusted amendment at the r it is pretty basic the postal service picks up the mail they sort the mail they deliver the mail it should not be surprising to anyone that this is a very labor intensive operation that is why so much five days a week you repeated it now there is an amendment about to be voted on that would take care of that problem very simply not twelve days not thirteen not fourteen it says lets go back to six because of exactly the arguments the gentleman from utah gave which is we are giving up a competitive advantage when we do that and i would add to your list of woes you know people on any saturday who are worried about getting their pharmaceuticals via the mail especially in rural areas such as my friend from utah represents so i would urge my friend whatever discussions he has had with his leadership to try to work something out there is an amendment in front of us i would urge him given what he flexibility i do think there is sometimes perhaps in august or june or july that probably arent necessarily going to miss it isnt necessarily even going to be on a saturday it could be potentially on something else so again i want to further the discussion i conceptually people understand where i am i want to focus in large part on getting to the relevancy i would also just suggest to refer to mister lynch that it is a competitive world out there and that is a good thing and at least the numbers that you look at with fedex and ups and others their labor costs are significantly less there is also a layer of bureaucracy and management that we need to continue to look at it it isnt necessarily that person who is working their tail off to get the mail delivered in the middle of a snowstorm sometimes there is a bureaucracy and a level of middle management or upper management that is impeding the ability to again they do a great work it is still amazing to me we put a stamp on a letter and it gets to the other end of the country in a relatively short amount of time and i appreciate the good hard work that we are doing but we have to be responsible mister connolly reclaiming my time i yield back to mister lynch to present this amendment to repeal section three hundred and eleven as an original sponsor cosponsor of the postal enhancement and accountability act of two thousand  which was just five years ago and as a former postal employee i am personally committed to doing all that i can to create a dependable robust and efficient postal service however there are many key elements in this bill that create an unfairness doctrine in diminishing the work of protections that i feel are necessary in a st century work environment section three hundred and eleven simply is an unnecessary reform of the federal employee compensation act specifically targeting postal employees and crippling worker protections and if the concern is in reforming feca we should look at the entire federal workforce and not just postal employees so one would have to wonder and ask the question why are postal workers singled out having served as a postal worker i personally know of how labor intensive it is to move and deliver mail to every citizen in the country regardless of inclement weather conditions postal sorters handlers and processors and letter carriers deliver mail six days a week postal workers deserve the same workers compensation protections granted other federal workers we all hold a responsibility to ensure injured and disabled workers in the line of duty are compensated for their service with a fair compensation plan and not the threat of a reduction in payments section three hundred and eleven does the opposite and i encourage us to repeal it i think that basic protection and fairness in the workplace is what makes our country the country that it is it makes our productivity what it is and i would think that it would certainly make good policy to repeal section three hundred and eleven and give the postal workers my reservations on a point of order on this section being included in the bill i think the parliamentarian has ruled that it is not in order before this committee it is in the jurisdiction of others but i think that mister davis motion  strike would certainly correct that defect he has correctly raised the issue of treating two sets of employees differently for performing basically the same  work i think that the department of labor has already expressed concerns about being able to effectively and efficiently operate separate workers compensation systems with varying benefit levels and medical treatments for  different sets of employees i also think there are better ways for us to address the issue of workers staying too long on workers comp and resisting retirement however this is a labor intensive job that they are engaged in and again i repeat my objections to this section being included in the bill as it is within the jurisdiction of another committee two other committees ways and means and the labor committee as well but i thank the chairman for yielding me this time opportunity to do along with the fine work of chairman walberg in his subcommittee is to look at ways to reform the federal workers compensation program under the feca program compensation benefits are paid at a rate as high of seventy five percent at salary tax free for as long as the work related injury continues or until death the average federal employee retiring on an immediate annuity under csrs will receive about sixty percent of his or her three year high average salary most of which is taxable compared to tax free feca benefits of up to seventy five percent of the salary unfortunately the feca plan has become a retirement plan for thousands of postal employees because the payout is better than what their retirement benefits would be today of the more than  fifteen thousand postal employees receiving feca payments eight thousand six hundred are age eighty five and older including more than two thousand ages seventy and older and one hundred and thirty two ages ninety and older and the oldest are ninety eight years old therefore i would  jurisdiction for federal employees did not now i have spoken since the last part of this markup with the chairman his intention is to do it but right now he is sitting with a g believe the place marker of the jurisdiction of this committee saying in no uncertain terms this cannot be kicked down the road forever is important i am going to speak to the gao and try to get that six week prediction of the number that this reflects that they asked for the study moved up as we already determined it is fully within our jurisdiction we have an absolute right to do what we are doing just as they had an absolute right to do broad change in feca that would have affected postal employees therefore i am going to side with the chairman on defeating this amendment because this is a problem that needs to be fixed as i said earlier though i look forward to working with the other committee of jurisdiction because if they can act in a timely fashion we would be happy to have them do a separate bill but i think as the committee of exclusive jurisdiction of the post office to not talk about what the chairman just talked about and make it clear that you cannot have people eighty five years old ninety eight years old in a couple of cases simply receiving tax free payment instead of being dealt with in a proper fashion and then put it on the back of the ratepayers so chairman i applaud you for your statement it was absolutely right i am voting with you the time may come when another committee picks up a bill that would take care of this but right now all we can really do is move this to the full committee work with the gao to get a study i am perfectly willing to pull this out it is not a big amount of savings but at the same time mister chairman i think we have to leave it in to make it clear that this is a problem that needs to be fixed that in fact the fifty or one hundred dollars million a year is money that the ratepayers should not be paying and it should be resolved to the benefit both of the disabled and in fact the the fact that we may feel strongly about something is not to be construed as asserting jurisdiction over that issue and when we have apparently an opinion from the house parliamentarian that this falls beyond our jurisdiction of the armed services committee or their schedule i dont know we can get into the judiciary committee and the financial services committees jurisdictions while we are at it because they have been too slow by our standard in marking up their respective legislation and therefore we are simply going to assert universal jurisdiction i think when we do that it taints our own process and i think we should tread lightly when we try to do that and i am going to support the amendment for lots of reasons but i think mister lynch has a point with respect to cautioning us about proceeding in this particular section when we have already received an opinion from the house parliamentarian i would yield to mister lynch mister lynch thank you mister chairman just a couple of points one is it is just a small matter but i believe we may have recited the fact that the post office did not make this two dollars billion payment i believe i got a letter yesterday or the day before that they had indeed made the payment mister ross i wasnt aware o we improperly consider matters that are not in order in this committee when we report this bill out whether favorably or unfavorably what impact does that have when this committee reports out ultimately we have exclusive jurisdiction over the post office but less than full exclusive jurisdiction over federal employees that creates a shared jurisdiction there is in fact an ability for the ed  and labor to act there is an ability for us to act the parliamentarian will make a decision at the point that this is reported to the floor on whether or not one a point of order there two  want ed and labor to look at this but quite frankly what they have done is they have asked for gao to do a study we are going to move that study up because we believe we can from six weeks to two weeks which i believe will give us some real understanding it is my preference that if ed and labor can take up this independently we are happy to but we cannot tolerate the post office paying for a failed system just because it is not fixed and i would remind the gentleman and i appreciate you yielding we have the ability to take the postal workers right out of the system so we have the ability to take them out of a system and yet you would have us not try to do something to reform it that is one of the reasons that we are taking it up we can and will if we need to take the postal workers right out of the system if it means that that allows the postmaster to ultimately eventually get the savings by not having people in limbo at a cost of one hundred   in fact i wasnt on the football team i was a wrestler and we are willing to wrestle with issues the fact of the matter is on ed and workforce committee and on the committee on workforce protection that i chair it was our sincere efforts that it would be bipartisan it would be an issue that we work through together in the entire federal workforce which takes in the postal service as well it was not an attempt to punt but it was an attempt to work with  both chairman kline ranking member miller and on my subcommittee ranking member woolsey if we could with full facts and figures in front of us come up with a solution that did take in the entire federal workforce and do it in a proactive productive way i am delighted to hear our chairman mister issa come alongside of us to assist us and i think maybe with  efforts gao which we expect to do a credible job will move from six weeks to two weeks and that would mean that before the end of our efforts on the full committee that this bill will go to we will have some concrete solutions in place and in fact may put it back in front of the ed and workforce subcommittee on workforce protections to do the job that we need to do not punt create what is necessary to go alongside of what this committee is doing in assuring our citizens that we have a productive working viable postal service to go forward and we deal with the issue of feca as well so on the basis of that i will stand with my chairman that is generally a good thing to do but in this case i agree with the provisions that have been made that that is an effort we want to move forward on mister lynch okay will the gen institutions to effectively do charitable work in america in helping the poorest and the neediest people given this tight economy and high unemployment nonprofit organizations and faith based institutions are called upon to do more to ease the burden of our citizens who are afflicting with diseases mental and physical disabilities disaster drug addictions reentry homelessness and poverty how can these organizations who provide so much assistance to others be called upon yet to share again a high cost burden that taxes their efforts his is just not fair nor the right thing to do let alone to think about it we must be cognizant of how section four  preferences for nonprofit advertising of h r two thousand three hundred and nine will impact our nonprofit and faith based organizations who receive charitable contributions from the average citizen to help others for example this provision would cost the march of dimes foundation an additional one dollar million in postage expenses in the first as you may know the march of dimes direct mail program is the second largest source of funding within the organization which provides lifesaving research efforts for women infants and children last year the association by thirty five percent according to the lung association this imposed rate hike would significantly cut back their mail volume and significantly reduce their  onations to fund research projects to improve treatments and find cures for more than thirty seven million americans there are many more examples of how section four hundred and three can hinder the efforts of the reason is simple nonprofit organizations provide needed support and services for the american people programs that government cannot provide during these difficult times nonprofits are being called upon to provide even more support for a growing number of americans the mail remains a vital means for nonprofits to communicate and raise precious contributions needed to continue their missions it is  logical and unfair to eliminate nonprofit postage rates resulting in massive postage rate increases it would cripple nonprofits and sharply reduce their ability to benefit american society at this time when so many americans are suffering i would urge that we not further penalize their ability to get help by increasing the mister lynch thank you mister chairman thanks for yielding the time while i largely agree that the postal service should work to ensure that mailing products cover their full costs i do recognize mister davis point that the specific challenges  increased postage cost may have on nonprofit mailers given the present state of our economy and the current financial challenges that some americans are facing it is plain that nonprofits play an even more important role nowadays and i think that mister davis amendment reflects that additionally we have heard from a number of nonprofit groups on this particular section of the chairmans bill one entity in particular is the american lung association and they have written to me saying that the increased costs of this provision would also have a devastating impact on our ability to deliver our mission programs including funding research to improve treatments and find cures for the more than thirty seven million americans with chronic lung disease educating people with lung disease and their families about how to manage their disease and fighting for cleaner healthier air to breathe nonprofit postage rates enable the american gentleman from virginia mister connolly thank you i thank the gentleman i just want to add my voice to that of mister lynch and of course mister davis perhaps this is again in the category of unintended consequences but part of the fallout from adoption of this bill could very well be to inflict serious injury to a number of large nonprofits who are heavily dependent on direct mail for raising revenue for communicating with   and of course the loss of a lot of labor rights due to this bill the loss of a lot of home delivery direct home delivery you will have to go and pick up your mail instead due to this bill so this falls in the category this provision would reduce the discount now given of forty percent to nonprofits annually over six years down to ten percent reducing it by five percent per year the reason that this is on the table is because of the postal service i believe that between this committee between the full committee and between the time we get on the floor that we will see a strong negotiation of bipartisan cooperation on resolving this issue of the nonprofits  this is a very difficult thing believe me i understand the significance of this but it is my desire to keep this on the table through the full committee so that we have an opportunity to hopefully reach two things when we talk about nonprofits lets remember that we touch equally the political mail the republican national committee the democratic national committee the state committees all of whom effectively are subsidize but having said that the forty percent to ten percent which certainly we can have a dialogue about if you take ten dollars billion in costs out of postal operations through efficiencies the actual amount that would be raised is not a forty percent increase in the rate it is not a thirty percent increase it may be a de minimis increase so one of the points that i hope we all look at between now and the full committee is if we achieve the efficiencies we know we have to what would be the net increase and would be affordable and i think that is an important one we dont want people having to go somewhere far away to get their delivery we want their deliver to be substantially to the home and i think we can do that but do it for a lot less money and that does drive down the cost the last thing which is hard to score and mister connolly you may not know this from the processing centers but the interesting thing that i have been told repeatedly is when you have excess labor what they do is they kind of say you go sort stuff and what are they sorting they are sorting to a great extent this very mail so the inefficiency is greater in non first class classic delivery and that is part of what we are trying to achieve in this is to make sure we right size the workforce for each of them so i stand with the chairman i know he is right on this issue at the same time i know he cares about not the overpayment due to the post office regarding the fers overpayment which is about seven dollars billion and the discussion about  a possible way to work that out so that we might use part of that money to sponsor a early retirement program since that is the post offices money and  it would achieve the objective of reducing the size of the postal service by offering an early retirement incentive what i have done here is rather than strike sections i ii and iii i have simply  redrafted this to put this language regarding the fers overpayment at the end of the bill so everything in the bill would remain as is except the language here would direct that the overpayment of the fers obligation by the post office be used for the purpose of sponsoring an early retirement surplus if there is zero surplus there is nothing to fund an incentive so it just says that the amount of those surplus postal contributions shall be used by the united states postal service for the purpose of as i said before a voluntary separat conjunction with a voluntary early retirement authority for eligible employees so those two groups are those that are eligible for retirement and those who are almost eligible for retirement i think those are the two groups that are defined in those sections of title  point may be deemed to be an underpayment depending on market conditions so that is what i believe and i have to give a great deal of credit to my ranking member here who i think he and i agree that if we can incentivize those that are eligible for retirement actual retirement then i think we have done a great service not only to them but also to helping the post office reduce their workforce my concern is the mechanism by which we are doing this is not necessarily an agreement that there is a surplus or that there will be a surplus later on there are several agencies that may show a surplus  their retirement system but yet may not be and vice versa so this is subject to market fluctuations over time which is why actuarial at any given time that is not actually what is the funded or unfunded liability of a retirement system directs we are trying to meet the goals of the legislation but instead of using taxpayer money as the underlying bill would require it would require us to borrow ten  billion in taxpayer money to give to the post office i dont want to do that so what i am suggesting is use the postal services money to fund these early retirements or retirement incentives for eligible employees that is the object of this amendment and i purposely left intact the remainder of the bill that  the sponsor mister issa was defending earlier with the hope that the discussion that we had earlier about addressing this issue the fers overpayment and the idea of using retirement my concern about using the fers contribution right now is that the only calculation is as current as of two thousand and nine and we need to see where we are because as pension funds go they fluctuate over time and i dont believe it is prudent to use it at this time to do that although i think that as time goes on we might be close to being on the same page with regard to how we fund that on for the life of the recipient this is an incentive likely to operate only in two years probably the current year and the next year there would be a certain amount of money put aside from the surplus so you are not extending any obligation beyond what you have now it may be seven dollars billion it may be five dollars billion but what we are saying is whatever is physically there that is owed to the post office direct them to use that for an incentive program for retirement for some of these one hundred and twenty thousand employees that they want to move off their payroll we would not be obligated beyond what we agreed what surplus of contributions by the united states postal service to the federal employee retirement system i hope i am making myself clear i am sorry mister walberg and i understand  your position my position fundamentally and simply stated is to say what if there is no surplus do we have a surplus today did we have a surplus in two thousand and nine do we still have one today and if we use these funds that we a surplus where are we going to be five years from now if it is now unfunded and do we have to come back and go higher for prefunding that is my concern that while i lauded the efforts to provide the funding for an early retirement my concern is that the source of those funds might have unintended consequences down the line if it creates an unfunded liability for pensions and it also does not take into account where we are as of two thousand and eleven only as of two thousand  make here is with its own money they have contributed too much money in excess of what they were obligated to do under the terms of the federal employee retirement system they have money coming back okay that is as of a date certain and of a specific amount certain that they will have due back to them what we are trying to do is to direct them to use that excess that so i know you are saying well we dont know what is going to happen on down the road right we dont know what is happening down the road what we do know right now is that they have overpaid by some number of billions of dollars thank you mister chairman here is an amendment i know will bring both side together with respect to the postal service one of my great concerns about the future of the postal service mister chairman is that irrespective of the particulars have to create a new business model for the future the current model doesnt work and isnt going to work carrying us forward we may disagree about how that is going to happen or what the constituent elements of that new model are but one of the things i think we have to do is free up the postal service to experiment and to look for commercial opportunities not in competition with the private sector but in partnership with the private sector as postal services all around the world do now there are many european models that are successful i will give you a small example if my local government would like to cohabitate in the post office with the postal service because it is easier for constituents lets let them do it and pay rent doing it if the dmv would like to cohabitate with the postal service so that people can have a one stop shop for local government paying taxes getting their license renewed and picking up their mail or dropping off their mail why not let  do it if starbucks wants to open up a starbucks franchise in the post office why not let them do it and make some money while we are at it there are lots of things they can do this simple amendment expands chairman is the crowd that actually put expectations and responsibilities on the postal service and restricted what they can do so my amendment would say lets lift some of those restrictions to give them the opportunity to see what might work and what might not let  thousand flowers bloom and two things that protect us from any concerns we might have the first is it requires before they do that an advisory opinion from the postal regulatory commission making sure that this would be efficacious and wouldnt do any harm secondly if you look at the third page of the amendment we have a sense of congress that non postal services offered by the postal service must be carried out should be carried out in partnership with not in competition with entities or other persons in the private to strike the last word based on what i am reading and i am just reading it for the first time i would be in opposition to this bill to suggest that you said repeatedly there wouldn amendments we were discussing i think there is room for cross functionality that are uniquely governmental functions one of the better examples that i see out there is the offering of passports now you know where to go to get your passport you can  with a starbucks to offer coffee i think that that would create a set of circumstances that would not be palatable to what we should be doing with the postal service i just don get your drivers license five days a week and maybe the state should be contracting so that they can on fridays or tuesdays do those types of services but i really do worry that offering products and services that would be in the gentleman from virginias amendment what he is saying is look lets just take for example the postal service right now has thousands of leases  for millions of square feet of office space throughout this country and we are at a point where we dont need it all and we are going to do some closings here and consolidations what the gentleman i think is suggesting is that right now we have shackles on the post office we dont let them sublet any of their property or re lease sublease i guess any of their property to others even though they may have a very low lease for thirty years and could make a huge profit on that we dont allow them to do that so what i think the gentleman from virginia is suggesting is to use those resources to allow the postal service to  contracting and expanding into more retail outlets so if one of the big box retailers wanted to offer the postal services and obviously this is being done now but if there was a concerted effort on the postal service to move away from the fix precisely allows that yes not only am i supportive of it the bill allows it colleague from virginia for his entrepreneurial thinking and innovativeness out of the box i must restrict my thinking to of course that this is the postal service and now putting them in a competitive advantage in areas in which they are not accustomed to in this broad language is not really i think a good idea i think that the business of business should be left up to business and while the post office has a defined market one hundred and fifty million households a day provide a great service i think giving this broad authority for them to enter into non postal transactions retail outlets using their technology processing facilities could have some unintended consequences that may be counterproductive and actually give an unfair competitive advantage to i think business functions that the post office but i think you have actually really given voice to precisely the philosophy here in congress that has gotten the postal service into trouble you can go all over europe you can go to many other parts of the world where this is not a novel thought the idea that what if a private entity i will use starbucks as an example says you know the postal service is so centrally located we want to put a facility in there and the bank says like it does with grocery stores we would like to put an atm machine there to make things more convenient for our customers just another commercial outlet and we will pay the postal service rent in order to do that a source of revenue that doesnt compete with the private sector that is the private sector actually saying this is a location we find desirable to constrict the ability of the postal service not to be able to do that to deny them possible revenue is frankly turning our back on the business model of the st century and i think very harmful to what we say we want to do which is to put them back on their feet and put them in a new direction so i would hope we will adopt the that could be made a competition instead of designating a particular retail they would then have to compete for the post office business that would make it fully  in concert with the way we do business in the congress and the way the private sector does business itself so i think it is a very salutary amendment and if the point is to  relegated to business and when we give a broad language as is done in this amendment to put the post office in an unfair competitive advantage to the business community i think that is inappropriate i think the postal service ought to use its existing resources for its intended purposes and that is for delivering post office packages stamps and the services that it has been well known for and respected for over the years i think the language here is clearly overly broad to the extent it says may establish a program to provide non postal services that use the processing transportation delivery retail network technology or other resources of the postal service are we going to open up a gas station because the post office has fueling facilities there are we going to sell gas cheaper because they dont pay taxes on it i mean that is the interpretation that i can gather from this so therefore to thank you very much for your compassion as i listen to you more and more i realize that you know every time i speak to a high school group or college group at graduations and i speak at a lot of them i always tell them dont mistake a comma for a period dont mistake a comma for  nih the other day talking to some doctors and they were telling me mister chairman that there were some cancers that a few years ago were considered fatal and because of innovation they were now able to call these cancers chronic in other words they found gene therapy and whatever to cure them they did not mistake a comma for a period we want the post the all american way so it is not about unfair advantage it is about trying to make sure that they have an opportunity not only to right size but to do things that will enhance their ability to deliver chairman issa was absolutely right we want them to stay in a position where they can continue to deliver the mail at a reasonable cost i mean if you have an exxon station for example it is not about taking over the ability to sell cigarettes and whatever it is about something else they can do that exxon station does i dont hear anybody complaining about country and some of them are going to be lost to our communities you know what is wrong with say a target or a walmart or wherever being able to have within their facility some postal services so the very people who are being served now are not left out in the cold or left out period i just think that we have to be innovative we have to help them help themselves they have already gone further than most folks would go the unions have been extremely cooperative and i think we have to give them a certain level of flexibility and latitude to allow them to be all that they can be so they are damned if they do they are damned if they dont when they want to be innovative we say you have gone too far and if they are not innovative enough you say they havent gone far i understand the desire of the chair to be a loyal soldier but there are five democrats who just said aye in a voice vote and four republicans who said nay i would ask respectfully of the chair how he can with a  bill seeks to ensure that the united states postal service contracts will no longer be subject to federal prevailing wage requirements the federal requirement on prevailing wages helps ensure that fair wages for workers on federal construction projects are code which currently requires the united states postal service to pay davis bacon act wages to employees of contractors working on postal facilities and requires the postal service to pay mcnamara ohara service contract wages to employees of both contractors and subcontractors as many of us are aware davis bacon prevailing wage provisions ensure that federal contractors performing work on specified construction contracts may not pay their laborers less than the prevailing wage and rates for fringe benefits for corresponding classes of laborers employed on similar projects in that area additionally the mcnamara ohara service contract provisions ensure that contractors and subcontractors performing services on covered federal or district of columbia service contracts may not pay employees in various classes less than the monetary wage rates and fringe benefits found prevailing in the locality or alternatively the rates contained in a predecessor contractors collective bargaining agreement mister chairman these federal prevailing wage provisions serve to ensure that employees receive fair wages for their work and provide the basic foundation for a decent standard of living in addition these provisions also promote the highest quality standards for construction and service work performed under federal contracts and as a result better  safeguard government against cost overruns expensive change orders and substandard workmanship again given the importance of these prevailing wage provisions to both workers and the federal government my amendment would strike section one hundred and thirteen i urge my colleagues on both sides of the  and seventy five dollars million in asking for a market rate as opposed to a prevailing rate under the davis bacon act those areas of the country where the market rate is appropriate whether it be a prevailing wage or whether it be a lower wage let the market bear that and that is what this bill allows to do it gives the postal service that flexibility to enter into these contracts at the market rate as opposed to the prevailing rate so therefore i yet another attempt to lower the wages and benefits of workers to their detriment i said a little bit earlier that i am wondering whether we have a compassion deficit here people still have to buy bread they still have to take care of their kids they still have to pay their mortgages if they still have a house they still have to take care of the things that most people take care of and then they also told them in the last amendment that the post office cant do very much of innovative things because we are worried about competition so i guess what we do is we not only tie their hands behind their back put shackles around their feet and then say  best of luck and then say by the way we want to reduce your workers there is something awfully wrong with this picture and i am begging and i am hoping that the press picks up on this am serious because at some point we have to have a level of compassion for people in this country every day we read mister chairman about how people  the latest rate of poverty forty six point two million million in this country rich getting richer poor getting poorer we are a better country than that and we can do better so i am not inclined to support a provision of legislation that will allow contractors to pay their workers substantially less than what other similarly situated workers receive so with that mister chairman i support the gentleman amendment i want to thank the gentleman for consistently standing up for workers consistently standing up for workers i believe that mister lynch gets up every day trying to figure out first of all understanding that we have one life to live this is no dress rehearsal and this is that life and trying to make sure that folks live the very best life that they can and i think this is another effort in that vein and again i