050 The Erickson Report for March 17 to 30, Page One: Good News for USPS

050 The Erickson Report for March 17 to 30, Page One: Good News for USPS

Okay, I was determined to start this time with some Good News, and so we will.

On March 8, the Senate approved a $107 billion financial program for the long-beleaguered, long-undermined US Postal Service, providing relief for the agency and enabling it to modernize and maintain, even improve, service.

The measure has already passed the House and President Blahden has said he'll sign it. It's a done deal.

Called the Postal Service Reform Act, it overcame a history of opposition and nonsense from right-wingers who have attacked the USPS because it a-has a strong union and b-is a government-overseen program that is popular and works, perhaps the two things they hate more than anything else with the possible exception of expecting the right to pay their fair share in taxes.

The Postal Service has endured years of losses triggered by slumping mail volumes and a 2006 bill that required it to annually pre-fund retirees’ health-care costs out to 75 years in the future. That is, the USPS was being required to pre-fund the health costs of future retirees who hadn't even been born yet. It was a crippling requirement and was intended to be, so crippling that it amounted to roughly half the annual losses and the system has defaulted on those advance payments since 2011. This bill forgives those past-due debts and drops the requirement for the future, saving the agency $107 billion over the next 10 years.

Significantly, the bill allows for something long proposed by advocates: The agency will be able to contract with local, state, and Indigenous governments to offer basic non-mail services, such as hunting and fishing licenses. Now we just have to get postal banking, and we'll really have something.

This doesn't resolve all the questions such as voting access, electric mail vehicles, and post office closures, but as far as I can see there is no reason to consider it anything short of Good News.