and the decline is expected to continue labor costs are eighty percent of the postal services total expenses existing compensation and benefits contracts leaves management unable to effectively reduce the size or cost of this workforce if the postal service were private business it would have to declare bankruptcy and completely reorganize itself on september th two thousand and eleven when its fiscal year ends the postal service expects to declare a ten dollars billion loss for the fiscal year payroll and mail delivery will begin to grind to a halt the handwriting is on the wall either we make the necessary systemic changes to the postal infrastructure or we allow this proud american institution to disintegrate before  short term fixes that rely on taxpayer funded bailouts will not save the post office that approach evidenced in the proposal forwarded to congress by the white house earlier this week is an attempt to find an easy way out but putting out collective heads in the sand and wishing the problem away will not just cost taxpayers money in the near term postponing the postal services day of reckoning will make it more likely that the american people will ultimately have to pay tens of billions of dollars to make good on the postal services obligations to its retirees in short the only way out for the u s postal services current mess is to vastly restructure its operations reducing the organizations workforce and labor costs and providing it tools needed to compete in the st cent modernize the postal workforce and infrastructure and eliminate a number of unfunded mandates on the united states postal service such as six day mail delivery there is no denying that this bill incorporates many politically difficult decisions but i believe the american people didnt send us here to do what is easy they sent us here to do what is right and what may be hard i strongly believe that there is room for bipartisan support on this issue and i hope we can work together to make this proposal even better as it moves through the legislative process the status quo for the postal service is no longer sustainable and reform is urgently needed i thank my colleagues for being here today and i look forward to working with them to ensure the the long term solvency and profitability of the united states postal service is probably one of the most important legislative actions our subcommittee will tackle in this congress one of the few government agencies explicitly authorized in the constitution of the united states the postal services and contribution to the fabric of our nation and our economy are undeniable the second oldest department or agency of the present day federal government the postal service employs roughly six hundred thousand americans reliably delivering six days a week to over one hundred and fifty million residences and businesses in every city county congressional district state and u s territory through its roughly thirty two thousand retail locations and hundreds of mailing processing and distribution centers the postal service has a record of offering top notch service at some of the worlds most affordable rates this explains why for the sixth consecutive year in a row the postal service has been named the most trusted government agency and the sixth most trusted business in the nation by the ponemon institute further the postal service stands as the hallmark of a trillion dollar mailing industry upon which millions of americans rely to earn a living therefore revamping and modernizing the united states postal service should not be viewed as a legislative burden but rather a policy making opportunity to put in place additional enhancements and operational flexibilities that will allow the postal service to thrive for decades to come unfortunately the bill we are considering this afternoon h r two thousand three hundred and nine the postal reform act of two thousand and eleven falls far short of that goal while we may agree that given the extraordinary financial challenges the postal service presently faces it is absolutely necessary that we collectively and by collectively i am referring to democrats and republicans in both the house and senate including the administration postal management and workers and the mailers we all must work together to come up with a reasonable and constructive solution to address the postal service operational and financial challenges however before we tackle issues such as changing delivery frequency and drastically cutting service and laying off hardworking proposals included in whatever measure is ultimately recommended for consideration to the full committee in closing i want to express my appreciation for the work that this subcommittee has performed thus far by holding hearings examining the state of the postal service i now only ask that we proceed cautiously and cooperatively as we consider how best to reform modernize and reshape one of our nations most valued assets the united states postal service when the government accountability office issued its april two thousand and ten report examining strategies and options to facilitate progress towards financial viability of the postal service i recall it recommending the development of a new postal business model rather than the dismantling or takeover of the united states postal service to that end mister chairman know that i continue to look forward to the postal service reaches every corner of every state and truly binds our nation together it is critical for congress to act carefully and quickly on legislation to ensure that the postal service can meet its current financial challenges and thrive for decades to come and for generations yet unborn this process will succeed only if it is bipartisan mister chairman i agree with you when you say the handwriting is on the wall but we are the handwriters and we can create the kind of system that is long lasting that does not fire people  this difficult economy and at the same time right size the postal service in this spirit i introduced short term legislation last week to postpone a payment the postal service is required to make to its retiree  house appropriations committee as a result the continuing resolution now includes a provision postponing the postal service payment we were encouraged with the cooperative way the appropriators and the committee handle this issue unfortunately the issue has been handled very differently here in this committee and i do appreciate mister chairman you saying that you wanted to work in a bipartisan way however i believe that this matter has been politicized and the issue needlessly has been taking steps to aggregate rather than solve challenges faced by the postal service i have been eager to work in a bipartisan way but to date the chairman has refused chairman issa that is to do so rather than work together on a consensus bill that could garner wide bipartisan and bicameral support and i remind you this has to be bicameral the bill has now been made even more extreme and even more objectionable to stakeholders than when it was first introduced for example in its current form the chairmans bill would set an artificial trip wire for the postal service to come under the authority of a control board this board would then be authorized to abrogate contracts that workers negotiated in good faith with the postal service management so that the board could terminate workers without even giving them a severance it is this committees responsibility to consider and develop legislation that actually has a chance of being passed by congress and signed into law this bill does not meet that test faced with the majoritys refusal to entertain bipartisan solutions we have been forced to introduce our own legislation to address these issues eliminate post offices our bill tackles fundamental challenges with fundamental changes that will reverse the postal services fiscal curve in other words we are doing that handwriting on the wall it does this by authorizing the postal service to enter into new lines of business that leverage its unique advantages like other businesses do and it gives it the flexibility it needs to accomplish that post offices are the central hubs of many rural and urban communities our legislation will enable the postal service to take advantage of this presence to provide new services and products such as check cashing facility leasing and retail services the bill will also create a new chief innovation officer to drive the development of these new products and services our bill complements these authorities with common sense measures to right size the postal service workforce and facilities in a very responsible way together these provisions will empower the postal service to function more like a business by focusing on profitability and accountability to stakeholders in this case the american people i ask the committee consider our legislation as soon as possible i continue to hope the committee will abandon the  approach that is pursued today and i remind all of us that back in two thousand and ten there were some who say that the american people were sending all kinds of messages but i know one thing they sent a clear message that they want republicans and democrats to work together to resolve their problems to resolve their problems in a reasonable and practical way with that i yield back mister ross thank you mister cummings now i would like to recognize the chairman of the full committee gentleman from california mister issa for five minutes mister issa i thank the chairman i regret that the ranking member distorts the record of this committee trying to work on a bipartisan bas i have reached out to you repeatedly i have made sure that this markup was part of an open process in which we made sure you saw the new language well in advance i assured you and i assured the american people and the postal workers that in fact getting to a profitable situation with the core business is our requirement and that is all i am dedicated to i do not want any trigger to kick in i want in fact the post master and the board to do their job ultimately i was very supportive of the seven week extension that is part of the cr additionally i have told many members of the minority including yourself  cummings that we will have huge transition costs i believe that many of the things which i have called a bailout or a denial of the problem may ultimately be part of how we create the headroom for the transition because no company goes from a ten dollars billion loss on sixty five dollars billion in revenue to break even or a profit without huge transitional cost i too share your concern that you alluded to postal workers more than one hundred thousand are able to retire today with full benefits perhaps closer to two hundred thousand over the next two years but even they deserve to be given fair notice that we in order to right size the post office are going to have to recognize a system that is beneficial to the future of the post office the last thing i want to do is to tell permanent postal workers that we are going to abruptly have them leave the service before they can receive their full pension that they anticipated and without any compensation the intention of this bipartisan bill and it will be bipartisan if i possibly can make it is in fact to make sure that we get an amount of dollars in savings greater than what it takes to break even because that creates the revenue that allows for modernization of the fleet and fair compensation to those who are no longer needed in a smaller more efficient post office but at the same time we owe them for their years of service we owe them a bargain they entered into fifteen twenty thirty years ago so i do think it is hard for us to come to agreement i do believe the american people want us to reach consensus on this but sometimes there are problems and they are not partisan there are republicans and democrats who do not want to go from six days to five days which the president wants to do which the postmaster wants to do there are those who simply say we should withhold less from future obligations for pension and health care but none of them are willing to risk not having a federal backstop if they are under withheld so any support i would have for temporarily abating that has to be based on an anticipation that eventually they can fully meet that obligation that is our obligation to the taxpayers it is also  obligation to the pensioners now and in the future lets be honest as we go into this bill eighty percent of the cost of postal delivery more or less a percent or two depending upon who you talk to is labor now we have two fundamental things we can do to reduce the loss related to labor we can reduce the pay in benefits of those hardworking men and women or we can right size the number of people and fully compensate those who are no longer needed those are two basic choices the third choice the one that has often been chosen which is we will increase the price of postage is a fools  because ultimately you can only go so far before you force more and more people out of using the post office the post office today is a good value it is not overpriced but i would have to be honest it is not grossly underpriced the problem is not the revenue they receive the problem is the cost of delivery now our bill anticipated thirty seven million or so households no longer getting their mail in a shoot in their front door but being transitioned to a box a short distance away like one hundred and nine million homes currently have that saves over five five dollars fifty cents million but not one penny of savings occurs unless we reduce the workforce over a relatively short period of time accordingly organizations that are involved including all of those who use large amounts of postal services it is going to be hard the goal of this committee and in every amendment we consider and in every modification that the ranking member or any member might offer i would like to preserve service to the greatest extent possible i would like to retain the value the low cost value of good delivery around our country because i believe that is important do we have a transition that primarily is going to be based on labor yes do i know that maintaining those rural post offices and some urban is important yes do i believe we have to reduce the number of processing centers in order to be more efficient i think we all know we do and none of us want it to be one that employs in our state or our city these are hard decisions the bill that mister ross is marking up today deliberately to give all of us plenty of time to look at it before we to the full committee is anticipated to leave as many options on the table as possible and mandate the minimum amount necessary and if you will work with us in that process to add additional items that could add additional savings we will work with you on how we figure out a way to fully fund the dollars necessary to modernize the postal fleet to in fact reward those people for their and they have been extremely cooperative but i look forward to working with you i think in these difficult times i have pledged and i am sure all of us have pledged to make sure that we be about the business of creating jobs not so whatever we have to do i think we have to do it with and again i want to make sure i think everybody agrees here we want to do this process in a way that in the contains provisions relating to the federal employees compensation act those provisions are within the jurisdiction of the education and labor committee further the provisions requiring the social security administration to disclose earnings information are within the jurisdiction of the ways and means regard to the federal workforce and compensation and workers compensation benefits it is the opinion of the chair that this substitute is germane staying within the confines of its own jurisdiction and therefore would find it out appreciate the work we are doing here and the opportunity that this is really the first step in the process and we will have opportunities in full committee to really consider what is being done but i would like to briefly comment on the provisions and eleven of the substitute which would make changes to the federal employees compensation act or feca feca is the workers compensation program for all federal employees it is my understanding that any changes to feca the f program including those made with respect to postal workers fall within the jurisdiction of the education and workforce committee and more directly within the jurisdiction of the subcommittee on workforce protections which i note that the committee on education and the workforce has and continues to review and address these issues as recently as july the committee reported a bill to make changes to the feca program for all federal employees in fact i have also signed on a recent july th request from the education and workforce committee to gao asking for their assistance in reviewing many of their forms addressed in section three hundred and eleven so that we can assess the i would ask the chairman to consider revisiting the substantive issues addressed in section three hundred and eleven and work with the education and workforce committee going forward to resolve any jurisdictional concerns  mixup at this point and respect very much the jurisdiction of the subcommittee that you chair and also agree that while we try to tend to focus solely on the postal employees that the feca provisions do encompass the federal employee workforce which is under the shared jurisdiction either a reach a consensus or b have a sequential referral if it is triggered as a result of todays markup as mister lynch knows this will go to the full committee we will have more than two weeks to vet this  and certainly my relationship with my fellow chairman is such that we are going to ensure that either the sequential referral that would have occurred to begin with happens or other changes made are necessary it is likely in my opinion point i believe the chairman has ruled and with those assurances i presume we can continue with the underlying amendment because ultimately it is a judgment call about which came first the chicken being postal or this question and i might mention mister chairman if we were to take the postal workers one hundred percent out of firs it would be one hundred percent within our jurisdiction this is already an independent agency that has special rules which are controlled under the postal reform act or several acts so i believe we are well within our jurisdiction but having said that i believe that this objection is one that we will work through and as you know  answer questions based on well is that potentially outside the scope yes does it change our jurisdiction to go even further if we chose to and the answer is no we have the jurisdiction to go much further we could effectively privatize the post office something we are not looking to do here so mister chairman i believe you ruled the gentleman may be interested in a vote i hope not i hope we can resolve this between now and the full committee and he certainly could make that known at the full committee if it  until you get a waiver from the other committees of jurisdiction which under the parliamentarians ruling belongs within the house education and labor committee and the ways and means committee if they had indeed waive the understanding since we gave you the language and you are only raising the objection here we have not had an independent opportunity to go beyond our own parliamentarian who has advised the chairman and he has ruled so i call for the question mister chairman institutes an affordable and responsible workers compensation reform ends an unfunded mandate for bypass mail delivery in alaska and allows the united states postal service to accomplish necessary workforce downsizing while maintaining to the greatest extent possible those employees who are not yet retirement eligible industry which employs over eight million people the postal service ensures that seniors get their prescription drugs delivered in a timely fashion creates opportunities for small businesses that ship parcels chairman issas bill would sacrifice of these valuable services the postal service provides in order to eviscerate the postal service workforce and the unions that represent their employees chairman issas bill would close thousands of post offices and mail processing facilities reduce mail services to days a week or for rural areas even fewer and would eliminate mail delivery for ninety percent of the individuals who have it delivered to their door in order to dismantle the post service he would create two new bureaucracies which would superse the postal service management and the postal regulatory commission these multimillion dollar bureaucracies new bureaucracies would be largely unaccountable both to congress and the american people but would be charged with statute with ending postal service frankly as we know it the bill would not save the postal service it in fact arguably could destroy it chairman issas bill applies a combination of flagellation and bloodletting to a patient who everybody knows is sick instead of bleeding usps dry we ought to give it the authority and flexibility to thrive in the st century first we should fix the ill conceived requirement that the postal service prefund one hundred percent of its anticipated retirement pension and health costs that is not a bailout chairman ross that is their money we also should refund the fifty to seventy five dollars billion pension overpayment these two simple steps would cost taxpayers nothing and would give the postal service time to make more fundamental changes in creating a new business model unfortunately chairman issas bill doesnt give the postal service the authority it needs to reform its business model rather than allow it to raise revenue like any other business issa bill explicitly prevents the postal service from engaging in commercial activity unless expressly authorized by this congress a strange proposal from a party that claims to be against picking winners and losers like senators collins and carper in the senate and other thoughtful observers several of us have introduced legislation and will be introducing an amendment to let the postal service raise revenue through the use of its existing network of facilities in partnership with the private sector also be introducing an amendment to replace the unnecessary and destructive provisions in the bill which would dismantle the postal service and instead relieve the postal service of a burden imposed by congress retirement prefunding we should not be stampeded or misled by the false choice presented by the majority in this committee between letting the postal service default or dismantling it through this bill instead we ought to pass legislation that combines short term reforms on retirement prefunding thank you very much mister chairman many of us on this committee and many of us who have been watching postal developments for a number of years have known that we would ultimately get to this point that is we would get to the point where we would have to do something drastic about the way the postal service operates and i guess we are at a point where it is necessary to seriously not only analyze and look at but make some determinations i have always felt that haste sometimes would make waste and we have before us a new configuration of the postal service but i am not absolutely certain that we have vetted all of the provisions contain within this bill so that whenever we make these changes we know that we have done the very best job possible that we have considered everything that needs to be considered there are many people who feel that five day delivery for example many businesses are concerned that this will deny them the opportunity to interchange their goods and services with the public in such a way that their businesses will continue to be profitable of course my colleague has already talked about requirements that the postal service has that no other agency government or private must comply with in terms of prefunding pensions there is also the consideration that people all over the country now are beginning to look at what the impact i know that in the congressional district that i serve there are seven postal facilities being looked at  possible closure the residents feel that they have just gotten to the point where they understand the potential impact and they recognize th postal service must be self sufficient but they are not sure about how you balance services in such a way that a whole section  given consideration but i do think that there is need for further and additional considerations i have two amendments that i am introducing so i would not thank you very much mister chairman the amendment in the nature of a substitute does unfortunately nothing to correct extensive and frankly confounding deficiencies of the underlying legislation for example the underlying bill h r two thousand three hundred and nine would require that if the postal service defaults on a payment to the treasury for a period of thirty days it must be taken over by a control board similar to the kind of control board previously imposed on the district of columbia the amendment in the nature of a substitute is even more aggressive also imposing control board if the postal service fails to make a prepayment retiree health benefit fund even though no other federal entity has to make such prepayments and private firms do not prepay these expenses ladies and gentlemen it is setting up the postal service to fail although the control board is ostensibly established to overhaul the management of the postal service it seems designed to break union contracts we all agree that we must urgently address the postal services financial challenges but solving these challenges does not require that we punish workers who have already made significant sacrifices on both pay and benefits  little bit earlier when we consider the fact that the postal service has whittled down one hundred thousand employees since two thousand and eight that says a lot it made all kinds of concessions the postal service has just concluded a new contract with the american postal workers union in april of this year and is currently negotiating with the remaining three of its four unions postal workers deserve to have their commitments honored and to know that they can bargain with the postal service in good faith even if the control board is never activated passing this legislation will destroy the trust between the postal service and its unions how will there ever be an arms length negotiation going forward if the commitments in these contracts can be broken what incentive will there be to come to agreements many changes to contracts governing the personnel policies should be made at the bargaining table not by congress and not by a control board created by congress amazingly the amendment in the nature of a substitute expands the attacks on the postal services workforce by authorizing the postal service to impose mandatory retirements on its workforce and forbidding severance payments to retirement eligible employees who are forced out as i said between two thousand and eight and two thousand and eleven the postal service reduced its workforce by more than one hundred thousand employees through attrition employee buyouts and hiring freezes the postal service believes it should reduce its workforce by two hundred and twenty thousand more employees by tw fifteen this is approximately the number of employees who will be eligible to retire by that date i believe necessary reductions can be achieved through continued attrition and additional buyouts as my bill would provide and i agree with congressman davis that we need to explore all of those possible remedies to this problem h r two thousand three hundred and nine would also establish a presidentially appointed commission on postal reorganization to commend postal facilities be closed similar to base closure and realignment commission the recommendations of the postal reorganization commission would come before congress as a single package for an up or down vote and nine also permits the postal service to eliminate saturday deliveries an authority the postal service has indicated it will utilize and reduce deliveries in rural areas doubling down on these cuts the amendment in the nature of a substitute chairman there might be some provisions in this bill that we could agree upon but again i think the underlying bill as well as the amendment in the nature of a substitute contains some damaging and harmful proposals that could negative amendment continues to maintain language that would create a brac like commission to tackle the postal services closings we have thirty eight thousand post offices they are near and dear and proximate to many of the people that we represent this is not a military base that you might have one or two per state these are facilities that are located right in rural areas urban areas and that are used by our constituents on a daily basis have had closings over the past few years where the postal service has designated certain post offices to close and there has been a great uprising in the community and we have gone to those communities and said okay we have to close down one the people we have another one on the other end of town that is not used that much why dont you close that one and we have actually followed the direction of the people that we represent and they have come up with a better solution so this brac like process i think is going to be fraught with a lot of problems and beginning some of the closing process with the large mail facilities and i think this would probably take that out of their hands as well worse still the amendment would grant the so called control board this new control board the authority to break legal and binding commitments made by the postal unions as the ranking member mister cummings noted we just went through a long negotiation with the american postal workers union a lot of potential increases they agreed to basically a flat wage package going forward over several years and they did so with the assurances that there wouldnt be layoffs so after the union sits down with the postal service and says well if you take very very very modest increases we will preserve the jobs and we wont lay off no sooner was the ink dry on that language that the postal service came back and said no you are going to take very low wage increases over the next few years but we are going to lay off one hundred and twenty thousand people at some point you have to have trust between people and i just think that three months ago when we began those negotiations between the postal workers union and the postmaster the old postmaster the previous postmaster they said layoffs were not necessary and that we could work this out going forward and now more recently under the new postmaster they are asking to abdicate the power of these people to actually negotiate  their agreement and also literally forcing employees who have spent decades of service in these processing plants post offices and delivery routes into retiring when we talk about bipartisanship in regard to this bill and we talk about transparency i dont think there is any more fundamental way to have transparency to have bipartisan participation than through a public hearing and through the amendatory process nor do i think there is any more fundamental level on which to have this than at the subcommittee level from which it will them go to the full committee so i think that we are on the right track with regard to the process with regard to the procedure with regard to bipartisan support and input just because we dont agree doesnt mean we cant work together the second thing i want to address of course is the prefunding which has been said that no other agency no other department has to prefund their benefits maybe we should require that maybe we should make sure that the taxpayers are protected from having to bail out or otherwise look at somebodys retirement plan because it to i believe it was postmaster cox who believed that they should have this formula in place that it was the principled thing to do and in addition to that would convey assets of the postal service without liability so that the postal service could start its independent business if you will not only with these assets without encumbrance but also have a monopoly to do so and in furtherance of that i have asked and there is going to be a bipartisan letter of my colleagues across both aisles bicameral that requests from the g determination if the current methodology employed by opm for allocating obligations between the ups and the federal government is consistent with law to comment on the actual analysis of the post office inspector general and postal regulatory commission for using  we will be asking this of gao so why dont you say well lets wait until this because we are now at september th september th the post office will be broke it will not be able to meet its financial obligations we are looking at labor but then the labor that this substitute offers is one hundred and fifty thousand members of the postal employee service are eligible for retirement not five years twenty five years that are eligible for retirement to receive full benefits so we offer them retirement so that we dont have to have unemployment so that we can make the necessary changes what i am getting at is that this bill offers the tools to empower the postmaster general to make the post office more competitive in a competitive environment and yes it is very painful it is going to be painful but if we want to see the long term sustainability and viability of this great institution i submit that we have to make these systemic changes and with that i will recognize any member on that day because they are not going to retire for thirty years well that is the idea behind this we have funds that operate that always have to be operated in a way that they meet their obligations as they ar ise we have a special requirement in this bill under paea the postal accountability enhancement act which says on a specific date each year that the post office has to make a payment of five dollars fifty cents billion it says right in the bill it is very odd to see that in a bill but it has the date and it has the dollar amount that should be deposited and that is a prefunding requirement so that puts tremendous burden on the post office  thank the chair last year a joint house senate committee heard testimony from businesses like amazon and hallmark that reducing mail delivery to five days or fewer would reduce the postal services competitive advantage the postal service does have several competitive advantages over its rivals and six day mail service last mile delivery and low costs that result from economies of scale are very important in that competitive advantage businesses also have noted that reducing mail delivery will hurt americas private sector for example in a letter to you mister chairman the financial services roundtable hardly a bastion of liberal democracy noted that this bills provisions reducing the postal services delivery week from six to five days will have a negative impact on businesses and nonprofits that rely on the postal services six day delivery schedule to correspond and send notices to their customers a coalition of businesses wrote to chairman issa urging that he use other cost saving measures instead of eliminating one or more days of mail delivery this coalition included the american forest and paper association the envelope manufacturers association and twenty six businesses members of the greeting card association as well as medco the pharmaceutical company cvs and medco have also expressed concerns that reducing the days of delivery will endanger senior citizens who rely on mail delivery for prescription postal regulatory commissions ability to opine and regulate in his bill that is an unacceptable delay for seniors who need that medicine furthermore we have heard from business mailers that such a decision actually might cause them to pull all of their business out of the postal service thus actually accelerating the decline instead of improving the situation despite the good intentions based on these kinds of business decisions the postal regulatory commission also found that ending six day would produce less savings than anticipated by the postal service or assumed in this bill and would produce greater declines in mail volume in fact it could actually lead to more losses by the postal service rather than any of the savings anticipated it makes absolutely no sense to pursue cost reduction measures which save the least amount of money but lead to the greatest declines in service such as ending six day mail in this bill combined the various measures barely save  billion five times less money than we could save by simply fixing the retirement overpayment that mister lynch has addressed we cannot put risk putting the postal service on the path of self reinforcing declines in mail volume reductions in service and increases in prices i ask that you support my amendment to protect six day mail service and look for savings elsewhere and i move the am hasten again to add that i am not sure that we know the full impact of what five day delivery would do for many of our business establishments of course there are people who rely upon the mail service to deliver their medications and prescriptions but as much as we talk about business opportunities now and talk about the need to protect our business community i would be  really flushed this idea out i know the intended consequences here is to strengthen the post office i honestly believe that is what the sponsors intend but to be honest with holiday and you have postal customers that are thinking about whether to put something in the mail or send it fedex or ups on wednesday or thursday they will say well the post office is going to be closed saturday sunday monday greater downward spiral i have seen two studies on this that are vastly opposing one another and i really dont think we have enough information on the reduction to five day delivery that would allow us to make an informed decision i understand that the sponsor here is doing what he thinks is right i just dont think we have enough information on it so i suppose the gentleman from virginias amendment thank you i yield back  i move to strike the last word i want to simply say that i am not in favor of moving from six day to five day i will offer an amendment that is somewhat similar to mister connollys but slightly different but i just want to on the record indicate that day second of all this does not make it automatic all it is doing is empowering the postmaster general should he need to do so to go from six day to five day which day he wishes to choose is entirely up to him now the other thing that it also does is  that it would save three dollars billion annually and is one of the largest single steps available to restore the united states postal services financial solvency this proposal for five day delivery has a number of steps designed to preserve service to the best extent possible it will continue to deliver mail to post office boxes on saturday keep post offices open on saturdays and continue to deliver express mail seven days a week public opinion polls have shown a large majority support a five day delivery service over alternatives such as raising postal rates are there any other benefits attributable to civilian employment with the united states postal service is based on any provision of law under subparagraph c such determination shall be made in accordance with such provision and any otherwise applicable provisions of law subject to the following and fifty one which is the united states postal service pension obligation recalculation and restoration act while i believe that chairman issa and chairman ross share a genuine commitment to ensuring the long term viability of the post office i am concerned that and nine does not set forth a practical framework toward achieving our common goal of placing the postal service on firm financial footing as previously stated i think that this legislation will result in additional levels of postal bureaucracy it will reduce customer service and it will actually punish the postal workforce additionally the underlying bill fails to address and rectify the postal services sixty five dollars billion overpayment of its civil service retirement system pension obligations and the six dollars ninety cents billion surplus it has overpaid to the federal employee retirement system as many of you are aware the united states postal service inspector general as well as t independent auditors working with the postal regulatory commission have found that due to an outdated actuarial methodology the postal service has significantly overpaid its share of civil service retirement system obligations for those postal employees who served both the taxpayer funded post office back prior to one thousand nine hundred and seventy two and the rate payer funded united states postal service that exists today in addition the office of personnel management has determined that the postal service has indeed overpaid into the federal employee retirement system account by nearly seven dollars billion given these significant pension overpayment issues i am greatly concerned that the bill put forth by chairman issa and chairman ross ignores a very institutional commitment to universal delivery standards fiscal responsibility customer service and employee rights in light of these concerns my amendment would strike titles i through iii of the underlying bill and insert the language contained in and fifty one to correct the postal services pension and overpayment issues as we continue to work on long term postal reform proposals that reflect more of a commitment to bipartisanship and rational solutions i do hope that the majority will understand the importance of once and for all correcting the unfair treatment of the postal services pension contributions requirements lastly i would note that h r one thousand three hundred and fifty one enjoys the support of over two hundred members of congress i two hundred and four members who have cosigned onto my bill including twenty four republican members which demonstrates the likelihood that the language would pass the full house however i am not certain that this is the case for  and nine so in closing i urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support this amendment as a more reasonable and thoughtful approach to improving the postal services financial condition and i yield back the balance of my time amendment i noted that you managed to kick a few more bucks into it but having said that even opms statement was really that there may be temporary amounts any use of this kind of legislation would result in no net savings of the cost of operating the post office so although these kinds of financial shifts for a short period of time could well take care of a liquidity event and as i said when the ranking member of the full committee was here that we may need to find ways to fund liquidity during the transition of this business unit that simply putting less money away for retirement when actuarially in the years to come if any of the projections come true as to the size of the post office the fact is we will need more money and have less people to provide that so i regrettably although i see that we may use some of the elements here some of the elements of the presidents proposal as part of transition funds since these amendments in my opinion gut the ability to bring real reform to the cost drivers of the post office do not bring a material change in how we deliver services it fails to deal with the underlying costs that eventually will swamp the post office unless we make those changes i do appreciate that it would be a liquidity event and again would pledge to work with the gentleman on transitional funds if at a later time nor or at the full committee you want to begin looking at how do we transition nearly two hundred thousand workers in a short period of time properly off of the payroll of the post office and there are a number of good suggestions that are not in the underlying bill and i would be happy to speak with the gentleman on it but i will be opposing this amendment in its form and yield back mister ross recognize the gentleman from virginia  because we the congress have required an overpayment we required something we require of no other agency in terms of one hundred percent prepayment so this is actually money owed back and it would almost instantly return the postal service to solvency it is such an obvious answer this bill chooses not to take it why because of course exactly what mister issa just accuses mister lynch of doing is what he is doing forcing us to make choices we dont need to make in a rush because there is a different agenda the agenda is to break the back of public employee unions that is why there is a provision in this bill on davis bacon has that got to do with the postal services solvency there are provisions that would take away the rights of the postal regulatory commission to do its job and regulate there are provisions that jeopardize the right of collective bargaining of the postal service employees and just to make it all perfect we actually make sure that the new commission that we create gets to set some numerical targets to essentially eviscerate the workforce of the postal service and break the back of the public employee unions now you might say this is just democratic rhetoric but if you look at the history of this committee this year it has been nothing but a platform to attack public employees and their rights to organize whether it be inviting the governor of wisconsin or looking at various hearings or looking at various pieces of legislation and this one enshrines everything we have heard in this committee before so it is not about do not be s rhetoric that all we are trying to do here with this bill is to improve the postal service no we are not there are lots of other ways of improving the postal service many of us have introduced legislation which has been ignored that would do just that so i support the lynch amendment as one obvious step to return the postal service to solvency and that will buy us thoughtful time to think through the future of the postal service and create a new business model for the st century i yield back the legislation but that doesnt affect employees it would affect potential contractors and i would hope that that could be clarified and for the gentleman from virginia i do not for a moment doubt  legitimate belief that your technique and this amendment of mister lynch would in fact give back money that is not withheld from any other agency of government but the post office with its autonomy with its ability they would have the ability to offer an early retirement program to the one hundred and fifty thousand postal employees who have already earned basically full retirement a lot of these people havent retired because when the economy collapsed in two thousand and eight they saw their thrift savings plan reduced by about forty percent they saw their houses reduced by tremendous amounts depending on where they live and so a lot of those people kept working because they were afraid to retire i think that if we offered a fair and reasonable early retirement system using the money that is already owed to the post office we might be able to move a significant number of those employees off the payroll into retirement and i think that really would i really think that would reduce the overall costs of the post office operations going forward thank light of the creation of the internal combustion engine we have to make sure as mister connolly pointed out that the united states postal service is prepared to compete in the st century and what this is doing is allowing this bill is allowing for that systemic changes if we want incentivize the retirement of one hundred and fifty thousand employees who are eligible to do so this substitute amendment provides for a collateralized loan of ten dollars billion to do so what we need to make sure is that we take care of the future so that the services that have been provided the services that are expected by the american public carry on and continue with that i recognize mister davis i think the ranking member has presented a very thoughtful amendment i support it urge its passage and i would yield to the ranking billion it would be due back they would have to pay it back eventually but what i am suggesting is that by using the money that is owed to the post office and there may be fights about the csrs but there are not a lot of fights about the calculation being used on the federal employee retirement system that money is owed to the post office seven dollars billion why not use their money to accomplish what we are trying to do here instead of taking ten  hear these words bailout bailout bailout and what you just said mister lynch seems to go against i mean it is consistent by doing it the way you are proposing then you are not talking about this bailout that we idea of being fair to our employees i think a lot of this boils down to how are we going to address these employees are we going to kick them to  subcommittee i think this does put us in a position to treat that fellow who delivers mail to you and the ones who are going to come complaining to you at the store this weekend about losing their jobs i think it does help us  issa i thank the gentleman i think we have found some common ground here even though it is sometimes hard to decipher it and it is not in the amendment but i certainly think that the chair has expressed to me and i certainly would express to all  finding a way to be fair to accelerated retirements early retirements or as you said people who are fully eligible but find it very difficult to go to retirement without some certainty of additional income all of those items are anticipated but not yet in the bill and i hope that that is part of what the dialogue here today the reason we had a subcommittee hearing is all about i look forward to that mister lynch is absolutely right and mister connolly for that matter we could yes it happens mister connolly we could in fact find the seven dollars billion one of the reasons that it is not our choice in the bill is that our concern is that the full faith and credit of the american people are behind the pension we would rather honestly loan and keep it on the books in that way but if passing this bill were possible today and we were only dealing with where we get transition money we would work that out i am sure the problem mister ranking member that we have to come to the reform possible reform possibility and then we all have to be fair to these longtime federal employees and i would only ask one piece of chairman i was in the military many many years ago i would long have been forcibly retired because the military has a schedule of up or out it is not nice to be forty five years old and told your services are no longer needed as a master sergeant but it happens every day one of the challenges for the post office is that has not been part of their culture the transition has to be fair to them and i want to be fair but i think for men and women in uniform who are leaving with a one thousand dollars or two thousand dollars pension mid life we have to understand that the federal workforce has to meet the needs of the american people not just the american taxpayer meet the need of the federal workforce so i hope we can have that dialogue positively because i do look at our senior nco corps in the prime of their life being sent out with a very limited pension and i know that tough decisions are made they cant necessarily be part of the military going forward at sixty or sixty two we have to look and say how do we get the best reasonably young workforce right size and i want to work with all of you mister davis thank you for your time i know the long living and we know we need transition funds and to be fair to the workforce so i look forward to working in good faith on that i dont expect that everyone on our side will vote for a final passage if it does some things they dont want and i know the i go to the post office every saturday and i see the employees and many of them most of them are well beloved because they are part of the fabric of the community and i live in an urban area but i would imagine that the closeness of these employees in rural areas is probably even more significant in many instances to their neighbors and every chance i get and every chance we get i think we need to do what mister lynch is trying to do and what the chairman has talked about and that is trying to make sure that whatever we do we do with a high degree of compassion  sometimes i wonder whether we have a compassion deficit in our country i think that if we can find a way to help the unions and the postal service i have to tell you the more i think about the idea that we have a system that has shed one hundred thousand employees in three years and i will never forget the hearing we had where one of those postal union presidents sat in that end seat right there and i think he was so upset because basically i think what he was saying is what do you want you squeezing and you are squeezing and you are squeezing and you act like we are not human beings you are acting like we are not your neighbors you are acting like we are not the people who deliver your mail every day you are acting like we dont matter and we have done all that we can do and we are willing to do even more but work with us and that is what i am hoping that this is all about us working with them mister lynch i applaud you for trying to find a way to make that happen people if we dont take care of our people if we dont find ways to keep them employed if we dont have a way to let them do for their families you can erode from the inside so when we have a system here like the postal service that has given its blood sweat and tears and continued to sacrifice and we have these unions who have come to the table and the unions have come to the table and i bet you i mean if you really listen to what they have said they have said we will make the sacrifices but damn it we want our bargaining rights and we will work with you because we believe in shared sacrifice something by the way we all need to be attuned to shared sacrifice shared