Date: 2005-07-26
Speaker: TOM DAVIS (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Virginia

Mr. Speaker. I thank my friend. an alumnus of the Committee on Government Reform. a very active former committee member. for yielding me this time. I rise today in support of House Resolution 380. the rule to provide for the consideration of the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act. "Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds." This is the unofficial motto.of the Postal Service. engraved outside the James A. Farley Post Office in New York City. But today. the Postal Service faces a threat far greater than snow or rain or heat or gloom of night. The threat is the outdated and unsustainable structural framework within which the Postal Service operates. It threatens to bring it to the brink of catastrophe unless Congress acts immediately. I think that H.R. 22. the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act. is the solution. This legislation reforms and sustains a vital sector of our overall economy. Standing afone. the Postal Service currently has more than 800.000 employees. But more than 9 million American jobs. $900 billion in commerce. and nearly 9 percent of the Nations gross domestic product depend on mail and package delivery. Each year the Postal Service processes and delivers 208 billion pieces of mail to more than 130 million addresses in the United States. That is 208 billion magazines. catalogs. thankyou notes. birthday cards. wedding invitations. Social Security checks. IRS refunds. letters to our Congressmen. movie rentals. all delivered in fulfillment of the Postal Services promise of universal service. .The last time that the Congress passed legislation to overhaul the Postal Service was 1970 when President Nixon signed the Postal Reorganization Act. before emails. before faxes. The world has changed. It is now time to bring the Postal Service into the 21st century. to rescue it from the structural. legal. and financial constraints that have brought it to the brink of utter breakdown. Now. our time to act is short. This past April. the Postal Service began the process of requesting a 5.4 percent rate hike for all categories of mail. These rate hikes. think of them as a tax on the averagepostal customer which. of course. is practically everybody in the United States. will take effect next year unless Congress acts. For direct marketers. financial service companies. businesses relying heavily on shipping and mailing. these rate -hikes will be devastating. Some observers have likened the Postal Services current situation to a death spiral. where declining business leads to higher rates which. in turn. leads to further declines in business until it is too late to change course. Unfortunately. under current law. the Postal Services only recourse to remain competitive in todays markets is to raise its rates. Moreover. the Postal Services more recent request for a rate increase was spurred in part by an existing requirement that the Postal Service contribute $3.1 billion to a Federal pension escrow account. even though this account now houses more than $73 billion in civil service retirement savings that rightfully belongsto the USPS. This is but one of the outdated requirements that H.R. 22 seeks to reform. Is this bill perfect? No. but there is no magic legislative potion that will cure the Postal Service of its ills. But I think that all of the stakeholders. the postal employees. the financial service companies. major marketers and. most importantly. all Americans who use stamps. are better off with this legislation than they would be without this long overdue package of reform. More than 35 years after the last reform of the Postal Service. with millions of jobs at stake. and particularly .in the face of the pending rate increases. the time has come for Congress to act. I want to thank the gentleman from California (Chairman DREIER) and the Committee on Rules for crafting this rule. I urge Members to support it. I thank my good friend. the gentleman from Texas . a former member of the committee. for his leadership and assistance in crafting this rule and getting this bill to the House floor. It was very. very important. and without his efforts. we probably would. not be here today. Ben Franklin once said: "A penny saved is a penny earned." Rates are set to go up 2 cents. If we act today. we can stave that off. we can delay that. we can put savings back into the post office. I want to also thank my colleague. the gentleman from New York . who has forgotten more about the Postal Service than I will ever know. who struggled with this for 10 years and has been very critical in crafting this legislation. and on the other side of the aisle. my ranking member. the gentleman from California . and the gentleman from Illinois who have put innumerable hours into crafting the bipartisan bill. I think this is a good rule. it is a good bill. and I urge my colleagues to support it.