Minutes. I have a statement i would like to give. I am going to yield to our friends from the house, chairman isa and our friends, i have enjoyed working with you. Last year, had a chance to bear down and try to get to we got in the red sun in terms of final solution weve made Real Progress. And when to forego comments initially and ask our colleagues to just go ahead and pick it up from there. Again, thank you for ining us. Thank you. Chairm mr. Cummings and i came very close in the last congress to what we thought was a bipartisan, bicameral deal. We start of this congress with the view that with you as team members and cochairs of what we think is a bipartisan, bicameral problem and bipartisan, bicameral solution, we believe we can get there. There. Clearly as you can meet today, the subject of fiveday delivery is going to be among the most important subjects. A day to emphasize that because i believe in order t get a comprehensive reform, we must first realize free in the realize free in the hands of the postmaster general and away envisioned is a good first step. Postmaster has determined going from a less than 50cent single delivery on a saturday to a fiveday delivery of that mail no matter how small an amount aware for the sunday dissents from a single flat letter will be delivered anywhere in america. But on saturday, a light day, relative to most other countries come and the idea there should be a small premium for flat air, 5. 60, sll less than the cost a good Hallmark Card from cbs term you can have a letter devered. More importantly, the postmasters proposal will continue to see vital medicines and packages delivered in any other way at any other point in america. The maintenance of universal service, better rightsizing of cost or benefit is the hallmark of what the postmaster is asking this congress to not stand the way it is. Probably the postmaster is correct that he is the authority with the law and maintain service, but the lot number and tended him to do it at a loss. The postmaster had to bear over 15. 9 losses last year. This cometely depleted his line of credit. It cost 10 to make cashflows to vircw required and agreed payments of 5. 8 billion for the second air in the row. This deferral does not mean eventually those amounts more common due. It is clear alternately to ratepayer a taxpayer will have to pay theover 25 and an accumulated debt of the postmaster or the post office. And i say 25 billion eye towhat statisticians to say its only 15 alien. This deferral still has to be taken care ive asked you the eventual medical retirement and other benefits of postal workers. Keeping that commitment currently is backed by full faith and credit of the u. S. Taxpayer. As i said, the important thing to realize is guaranteeing sixday delivery in america, but doing it at a rate that allows the post office to become solvent again iscritically something the postmaster has to be allowed to do as a preamble to the legislation we vision. Australia, canada, finland, spain and as we often know but somemes snicker, sweden have all gone to fiveday delivery. Rural and urban countries have found that the advantages of electronic mail, with advantages of direct deposit, including social security, which is 100 correct deposit for seniors, the volume of five male hasgone down and will continue to go down. We in congressften look at loss of jobs is it that thing. I want to close them making a conclusion. Had we to years ago from a three or sicko, four years ago dealt with this problem, individuals of the post office who are longtime workers fully able to retire, could have been paid a full year of their pay as an incentive to retire not early, but in fact not later. The cost of a 50,0 buyout of a potential retiree is swiped us and retirees for 1 billion. Essentially, in less than a year, you could provide that benefit to every Single Person eligible to retire and still do it for less than we lost last year. Im not suggesting we automatically pay large buyout, but if we can find efficiencies, we can find a way to encourage people to retire without breaking contracts, trust, having people have to go into their golden years are the post office has the right amount of people. E last point as a bargaining point we are so aware of. Chairman come you enjoy a great many urban older homes in your state. Many of those homes have shoots in their door. Everyday a postman comes up and puts flat mail in there, but more and more, the son home see about a piece of medicine or purchases from amazon placed on the stoop, crammed inside the door for some oher way delivered as best a postman can with thereality that that system, the flat bell system did not envisionhat you do with a box that will be left if youre not home and more and more seniors and young people are out inactive. So the postmaster at his request would like to accelerate over the near future the ability to put in boxes pushed back the older homes in seniors to say what if i have to walk arnd the corner . Ever tell you here today that providing a secure box large enough to take purchases and medical supplies in every neighborhood in america should be a goal we in congress pernell, whether its a new neighborhood portal neighborhood, we find a way to define acceptable boxes to reduce the time necessary to deliver mail, but increased security at medicines delivered to everyoint in america. I believe it to his largest single savings in the system, fiveday delivery and modernization of to the curb delivery are both beneficial it done right. We now have the postmaster was to do it. The other should be a goal to make sure funding is available to provide appropriate secure storage for every american because more and more that the medicines are delivered and thats how purchases are delivered. With that, id be happy to take your questions and i yield back. Mr. Chairman, thank you for thoughtful testimony and now im pleased to welcome congressman cummings. Thank you, its my honor and privilege to be here this morning. I want to say to you, mr. Chairman come youre absolutely right. We spent some time in the red zone, but america expects us to get in the end zone. I do believe and i was listening to you, senator coburn this morning on morning joe. I said to myself, we have to get this done with a reasonable guy like senator coburn and i believe we will. I really do. You know im also pleased to be here with my friend and colleague, chairman and he said in the Postal Service is a vital link that binds our nation together, delivering mail to more than 150 million addresses in operating 32,000 post offices nationwide for Postal Service connects families, friends and businesses across the vast distances of our great country. Last year however the Postal Service reported losses of approximately 16 million. At last onebut 3 billion in the most recent quater. It is friday for a 50 alien dollars. It is authorized to borrow from the treasury and continues to this approximately 25 million a day. It also faces a burden not required of any other agency or business in this country. It must be billions of dollars every year to prefund Health Benefits for its retirees. As we all know, this not simply does not add up the Postal Service needs a new formula for success. Last week the Postal Service announced it intends to end saturday mail delivery and accept packages in august. Inmy opinion, this announcement was an unfortunate development and will not solve the Postal Services longterm fisal problems. Instead, Congress Needs to pass comprehensive reform legislation that addresses not only delivery standards come up with a range of reforms needed to fundamentally reengineer the Postal Service for the next century. To its credit, the Senate Last Year passed comprehensive Bipartisan Legislation to reform postal operations, including extendg the schedule for retiree payments, overpayments to the Postal Service made to the federal Pension System and providing key tools to access the Portal Service workforce. Everybody agrees we have to resize the workforce. I was pleased the senate included several provisions for my legislation. Too many people argue the Postal Service to be selfsustaining, like a usiness. At the same time arguing it should be banned from competing against the private sector. I believe we must allow the Postal Service to expand into new business lines in that bill wouldve done that. Unfortunately, the most significant challenge facing the Postal Service today is not the delivery or declining mail volume or prefunding health care to retirees. Its congress failure to act. Although the Senate Passed a comprehensive and bipartisan bill, the house failed to consider legislation. We cannot solve this problem if we continue to worry. That will only grow more desperate and more dire. There is some reason for hope however that is the ongoin commitment of the members of congress in this very room. The people in this very room can make this happen. Over the past 10 months weve come together to discuss potential solutions in a serious matter and ive been encouraged by many eas of agreement was reached. As a matter of fact, leader pelosi asked mtoday about the status of the bill and i told her that weve got 90 there. We werent that far. I believe we were on me that the twopoint line, mr. Chairman and i just cant afford to fumble the ball because when we fumbled the ball, what happens if america loses. I believe we are close. If we would launch a renewed effort as soon as possible, we can have a bipartisan bicameral solution. I predict we can complete the legislation before the end of march for thcurrent appropriations expires. To meet the deadle, we need to do it right now theres no time to waste. Finally, let me conclude the issue closest to my heart in this debate. I believe we have a solemn obligation to honor the dedicated Postal Service employees who has served this institution for decades. A 60 how to resize the Postal Service workforce, i urge my colleagues to fight and fight very hard to demonstrate compassion and respect for middleclass American Workers and their families. By the way, 21 of them are veterans. 40 are women. Many of them single head of useholds. And so mr. Chairman, i thank you for holding this hearing and i look forward to recorded during our colleagues in the days to come in with that i yield back. Thank you. Another thoughtful and it struck to comment. Thank you at the view. I like the visual here are the two review sidebyside, democratic republic and, rolling up sleeves to make this happen. A lot of us watched the super bowl and you andi are pulling for the same team. We have a quarterback, wheres he from . Delaware. Thats right. As can imagine the ravens, but i didnt want to take it too far. At the end of the game, 40 niners headed in the red zone close to the end zone. Couldnt get the balmy and sound to me is to make sure we get the ball in the end zone. We bn joined by senator ayotte. Delighted youre here today. She brought with her a veteran, a great colleague, one i love to work with, make enzi. They been joined by senator baldwin from wisconsin is a member of our committee. I have a long statement i ask unanimous consent to be made part of the record. I went to leadoff witnesses instead. Dross and pieces out of my prepared testimony. We need the Postal Service. The event of the stal service if t patient was born. 70 Million People dont have a job today there relates in no small part because of the work the Postal Service does for all of us. 12 years ago when i was a freshman here, tom, i had my staff count the number of letters we got them for about everyone email we receive, we got about 50 miners. Today is just the opposite. For every 15 emails a day roughly one letter. Therein lies the problem. The way to communicate is changed or the Postal Service is trying to change but that induce some degree have succeeded in theres a number of other things we have to change further in our job is to facilitate that. When they come up with new ideas to try not to be it was not that long ago that we had 800,000 employees or so in the Postal Service. Moving a bit lower, the idea is to right size the enterprise. The other thing the president talked about last night, something they tried to do a lot about, we spend more money for health care in this country than any other on earth. In japan they spend 8 of gdp. The closest major country to us is norway, spending 52 less on health care that everybody. One of the things the post office is trying to do in this country is trying to figure out how to provide Good Health Care for people, Getting Better results for the same amount of money. I would be anxious to hear what you have to say on this, mr. Postmaster general, to figure out how to make that happen in a way that is not the disadvantage of the employees and retirees. We need to do that. The other thing is the president talked last night about the need to change revenue. This cannot just be about cutting. Not just about retire not just about cutting services. I heard on the radio the other day and told paul simon song, 50 days to leave your lover. We need 50 ways at the postmaster general. Ways to make some more money. How would you do that . How would we be less of an impediment . A good idea. The last thing i want to say is this postal employees are going to a time of great uncertainty. It is not an easy time and has not been an easy time to be a postal employee. Most americans feel the Postal Service does a great job for them. They have a better Approval Rating than even the doctor and myself, if you can believe it. [laughter] if you are over 85 , i want to drink would you are drinking over here. It does seem like a combination of not that high and a lot lower for us. I dont know. But at the end of the day i want postal and i read i want Postal Service employees to know that we are grateful for the work they do and we appreciate that the work of leadership to try to right size this enterprise. This is a problem that can be fixed. This is a challenge that can be met. My goal is to do it sooner. We are in overtime right now and we will get the ball in the end zone. We had five overtimes with one more, this is it and we will get it done. I want to thank you for your testimony and your hard work on this issue. I was one of those that failed to vote for the postal reform bill because i thought that it lacked some of the central things required, but i would want both of you to know that i am firmly committed to getting a compromise bill that will pass both chambers and do it forthright. You have my commitment to do that and i appreciate the testimony. I have a question, if i could. If you have a thought, that is fine, i do not want to put you on the spot. The issue of health care, deficit reduction, if we do not figure out how to get Better Health care results for the same amount of money, the Postal Service, we have to do more than amortize the prepayment of health care over 40 years. We will do that. The compromise and we will work out is changing the amortization schedule. The postmaster general will give us ideas with respect to that. Amortize the prepaymentthe big y were trying to run Health Insurance programs and the day and the others said they would be willing to run it. Better results, frankly, for less money. Is that blue sky crazy . I do not think it is blue sky. We have all had good guidance from the postmaster on what he would like to do. It is not just in viciousness that is necessary. It is very clear that if the government can transfer out its full faith responsibility for health care on a willing basis, that is in everyones best interest. I think that we have to be realistic, you cannot transfer something out, literally, saying that they will turn it over, as General Motors did, and still be full faith. That is the one challenge. But i do support the idea of giving giving the government out of this health care business. Your committee in the senate, a slightly different from our arrangement, has complete control over the federal work force. We have a big chunk, but we do not have it all. The real question on health care is is the federal Government EmployeeHealth Care System first or second read it relative to medicare . This is an important issue that we have to decide as members of the federal government. From the standpoint of we rely on they consider it neutral. From the standpoint of what would happen in the private sector, no company would say that they would pay all of their bills and anything not paid goes to medicare, they would say that medicare has been fully paid into by the men and women of the post office and we expect them to provide what it would provide for the private sector and we will supplement it. This is what states choose to do, the few that are not fully in the system. That is one of the key questions for your committee, even more than our side, are we going to look at medicare as the primary responsible for all workers, including the postmasters proposal . If so that changes the calculation of what the ratepayers should be paying for a supplemental medical facility. That is not the way we have looked at it in the past and it is one of the reasons the number we are wrestling with is so big so big. I have heard the proposals of the postmaster. And i have said to him that i do not have a problem with that, as long as we are able to get comparable coverage. It is one thing to go out and change things, it is another one when you have on the one hand with the present system 100 and another system you have 75 . He claims that they