[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 185 (Monday, December 5, 2011)]
[House]
[Pages H8127-H8128]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      UNITED STATES POSTAL SERVICE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Oregon (Mr. DeFazio) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. DeFAZIO. Later today, something stunning is going to happen that 
will catch many Americans by surprise. The so-called Postmaster General 
is going to announce details that will lead to the end of the United 
States Postal Service and universal postal delivery in this country.
  This is an incredible blow to our economy. You're talking about 
closing processing centers. Let me just be specific. In my area, 
they're talking about closing the Eugene/Springfield processing center. 
It means if I mail a letter from Springfield to Eugene, 6, 7 miles 
away, it will be carried by truck to Portland, Oregon, and then sorted 
there and then trucked back down sometime that week.
  They're saying they will no longer guarantee 1-day or 2-day delivery 
on first-class mail. They're going to move to a guarantee of sometime. 
If you mail it on Wednesday it will be a minimum of three days till--
oops, wait--we don't have Saturday delivery anymore under this plan. 
So, actually, you mail a letter on Wednesday or a bill on Wednesday, it 
won't get there until the next Monday.
  They will drive more people to use the services that have cut into 
their revenues. But some people don't have that option, and some things 
are essential to commerce in this country. There are many, many 
businesses that will be affected by these delays, and in addition to 
the delays of prescription drugs or Netflix, mailing DVDs, or, you 
know, people buying things on eBay, Amazon.com--these things will flood 
over to UPS and to FedEx and further undermine their revenues.
  This guy, this so-called Postmaster General, should be fired because 
of a lack of any imagination or initiative in proposing the death knell 
for the great United States Postal Service. With 100,000 people laid 
off, oh, that's just what we need in America today. Let's lay off 
100,000 people. Great idea.
  And then he's going to close local post offices. Let's talk about 
little Tiller, Oregon, in my district, 16 miles on a winding road 
subject to heavy rain, subject to black ice and snow in the wintertime 
to the next town, a generally elderly population and generally not very 
affluent.
  These sorts of closures, which will save minuscule amounts of money 
for the post office, are going to be death knell blows to small rural 
communities across America.
  Now, weekly periodicals: Get today's news next week, sometime. Yep, 
that's right, 7 to 9 days for your weekly periodicals. That's going to 
do a great thing for the remaining periodical industry. That's really, 
really special and, again, driving people to look for alternatives that 
will further undermine their revenues.
  I don't think there could be a more shortsighted proposal. Now, 
there's plenty of blame to go around because this Congress has failed 
to act. The Postal Service overpaid $7 billion into a Federal 
retirement account, but the Republicans are refusing to give the money 
back to the post office.
  They'd rather lay off 100,000 people. They think somehow the private 
sector will take this over. Tell me, who in the private sector is going 
to deliver a letter for 45 cents to a small rural community 40 miles 
from the nearest or 100 miles from the nearest sorting facility? That's 
not going to happen. These people will be deprived of any meaningful 
service.
  There are other critical reforms that could be undertaken short of 
dismantling, killing the United States Postal Service. If these 
proposals go forward and if this Congress continues to fail to act, and 
this guy gets to continue to put in place his dyspeptic vision of a 
future for the Postal Service--and the White House continues to be 
totally silent, absent from this debate, as they are so many--we will 
no longer have a United States Postal Service in this country.
  That would be an incredible blow to our economy, to our future, and 
to the prestige of the United States of America. I guess we'll become 
the first developed nation on Earth without a postal service, just like 
we're the only developed industrial nation on Earth without universal 
health care.
  We're the best.

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