COLUMBUS — Supporters of the U.S. Postal Service are pressing for passage of a bill to shore up the troubled agency.
Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) co-sponsored the Senate version of the bipartisan 2021 Postal Reform bill, which is currently in committee.
John McHugh, a former New York congressman and Secretary of the Army, serves as president of the Package Coalition – a group of businesses including Amazon and EBay, that rely on the U.S. Postal Service to deliver their goods.
He said the bill allows the Postal Service to restructure its pension obligations without cutting benefits to current retirees.
“That’ll give them the opportunity to right the ship, from a budgetary perspective,” McHugh said. “To make those critically important overdue investments into their infrastructure, their truck fleet, into the kinds of things that will help them become more efficient, more effective and more affordable.”
Postmaster General Louis DeJoy supports the reform bill and has proposed a ten-year plan that would put the agency on a stronger footing by emphasizing the more-profitable package delivery business.