Photo: GEORGE FREY / AFP / Getty Images
By: Real America News Updated 08 Sea 2022, 20: 57 PM EST
The Senate passed Tuesday sweeping bipartisan legislation to overhaul the finances of the US Postal Service ( USPS) that will allow the federal agency to modernize its operations.
The final vote was overwhelmingly bipartisan 79-19. The bill now heads to President Joe Biden’s desk for his signature.
The Postal Service Reform Act , which was approved in the House of Representatives last month by 342-100, would require retired postal employees to enroll in Medicare when eligible, while eliminating a previous mandate that required the agency to cover their health care costs years in advance.
Those two measures would save the USPS nearly $50 billion dollars over the next decade, according to the House Oversight Committee. The legislation would also require the USPS to create an online dashboard with local and national delivery time data.
The Postal Service played a central role in the elections of 2020 by allowing many citizens to vote by mail in the midst of the pandemic and, as a result, triggered a new political push to address the financial problems that the agency has been dragging for years .
The bill also requires the Postal Service to maintain your service six days a week.
A Unlike other government agencies, the Postal Service is not financed by taxes, but by the income it earns from the sale of stamps and the delivery of packages.
In addition, Congress establishes the rates that the Postal Service must charge and that are considerably lower than those of the logistics operators. FedEX and UPS, its main competition.
Unlike those two companies, The Postal Service has routes to every home in the country, even taking its service to a remote community in the Grand Canyon, where the mules deliver the mail.
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