Postmaster General David Steiner Testifies Before The Senate

[17:06] the committee will now come to order the postal service is once again telling congress that it's [17:13] out of money running out of money once again the answer seems to be send the bill to the taxpayer [17:19] just give us some more money every private business in america lives under a discipline [17:24] the postal service has escaped when demand falls a business makes hard choices cuts cost uses [17:32] contractors when they can do the job for less and when something fails it stops doing it a company [17:37] that refuses to adjust does not double its line of credit from the treasury it goes out of business [17:44] the postal service plays by different rules when volume falls it does not cut head count it adds [17:51] we've added over 120 000 employees it's the opposite of what you do when a private partner can do the [17:58] work for less you pull the work in-house instead you've been pulling the work in-house at a higher [18:04] cost when a capital project fails the post office keeps writing checks and when the bill comes due [18:12] the post office doesn't answer it hasn't answered it comes to congress asking for a higher credit limit [18:19] and calls it reform that's the heart of the problem the post office has been protected from the hard [18:25] choices that would stop the bleeding so the bleeding never stops look at the record we were told that the [18:32] 2022 reform law which shifted 107 billion dollars away from the post office would pull the postal service [18:40] out of the hole we were told that the delivering for america plan would modernize the network and [18:46] restore solvency we were told this time it would be different it was not since those promises the [18:53] post office has lost another 26 billion and it is spending money does not have on infrastructure it may not [18:59] need since 2007 the postal service has lost more than 117 billion dollars nine billion dollars in [19:07] the last year before anyone calls those losses uncontrollable its own numbers say otherwise it has [19:15] roughly 18 billion in controllable losses since 2007 3 billion just last year this is not a rough patch [19:23] that is a broken business model the postal service has already maxed out all 15 billion dollars [19:29] it can borrow from the treasury the postmaster general warns it could run out of cash as soon [19:34] as september if it continues to meet all statutory obligations so the question is not whether the [19:40] post office needs more money the question is whether congress will keep rewarding failure without [19:45] requiring change this is a business built for a country that no longer exists and it refuses to adjust [19:52] to the one that does first class mail is down 34 percent since 2014. over the same period [19:59] the post office grew its career workforce by nine percent that makes no sense volume down by a third [20:06] head count up no private business would do that labor is about 80 percent of the postal service costs [20:13] costs at ups also unionized it's closer to 60 percent so the difference is not the union the difference [20:20] is whether management will adjust to reality instead of adjusting it made things worse since 2020 [20:28] even as revenue fell the postal service converted about 285 000 workers into career positions raising their [20:35] pay and locking in decades of pension and health obligations it has no plan to fund when a private [20:41] company's volume falls it reduces labor costs when the postal service volume fell it added employees and [20:49] made them more expensive this is not reform this is the opposite of reform the new postmaster general did not [20:56] make all of these decisions but he controls whether they continue the fleet electrification the multi-billion [21:02] dollar network redesign the capital projects without a clear return these are not unavoidable costs [21:09] they're expensive choices and congress deserves to know whether new leadership will continue them [21:15] at the very least the postmaster general should immediately implement a hiring freeze to get labor costs under [21:21] control there are estimates that 1.8 billion dollars could be saved in the first year with a hiring [21:28] freeze we've had a year and i haven't seen anything any any action in this direction and while it runs up [21:35] these costs the postal service will still price its core product below what delivery cost a stamp is 78 [21:41] cents heading to 82 still among the cheapest in the developing world with its dominant products price below cost [21:48] it's no wonder the postal service can't break even that is not a business plan it is a hidden tax [21:54] before congress considers another dollar of relief or more borrowing authority the postal service should [22:00] show the committee five things a real plan to bring labor costs under control proof that private partners [22:07] will be used where they cost less a commitment to stop capital spending that shows no return a willingness [22:14] to consolidate facilities that no longer make sense and proof the service mandate can be met without [22:20] permanent losses and if it cannot an honest debate about the mandate itself anything less is not reform [22:28] it is a slower more expensive way to fail and as always the bill will be sent to the american people [22:35] senator peters thank you uh mr chairman thank you for convening today's uh important hearing [22:43] for more than 250 years the united states postal service has helped bind our country together it's [22:50] connected families it supports small businesses it ensures that americans nationwide can receive the [22:57] essential mail and goods no matter where they live the postal service is the only carrier that delivers [23:04] to every single address in america that's a feat that for-profit competitors don't even try to meet [23:13] for communities across the country particularly harder to reach rural communities the postal [23:18] service and its workers provide a an essential public service each and every day in 2022 i was proud [23:24] to lead and pass the bipartisan postal services reform act which increased transparency around postal delivery [23:31] performance ended overly burdensome retiree health care pre-funding requirements and integrated postal [23:38] service retirees health care into medicare and codified six-day delivery service however it's clear that the [23:45] postal service continues to face significant challenges the delivering for america plan has not worked [23:53] costs are up service is down and customers are paying the price the plan has not yielded the financial [24:01] results needed to stabilize the postal services bottom line over the past five fiscal years the postal [24:08] service has posted 9.7 billion dollars in controllable losses earlier this year postmaster general [24:17] signer testified in the house that the postal service could run out of cash as soon as this year [24:24] since then the postal regulatory commission gave the postal service flexibility on how it spends revenue [24:30] from its additional rate authority providing the postal service with an additional 2.4 billion dollars [24:38] this year the postal service has also temporarily suspended its normal contributions to the employee [24:44] retirement plans to preserve cash while the postal service has not provided a formal estimate of [24:52] exactly when it will exhaust its available funds it's clear that congress and the postal service must take [24:59] action to ensure americans continue receiving mail reliably and affordably for the next 250 years the postal [25:07] service has shared some proposals with congress that would help put it on stronger financial footing including [25:13] investing its pension funds revising its calculation for its civil service retirement system obligation [25:20] as well as raising the borrowing limit the postmaster general is also now asking congress to consider [25:26] reviving an appropriation for the postal service these proposals certainly deserve serious review [25:34] but any reform must come with real transparency real accountability and clear service improvement plans [25:41] the postal service must also do a better job of ensuring that every employee returns home safely at the [25:48] end of each day last year nicholas acker was tragically killed in an accident at a processing facility [25:55] in allen park michigan that facility was cited by osha and its safety standards compliance [26:02] and in my urging the office of inspector general has now launched a nationwide facility safety audit i [26:09] expect the postal service to fully cooperate with the audit and double down on its efforts to protect [26:14] all of its employees when they're on the job and finally we can't discuss the future of the postal service [26:20] without addressing the recently published proposed rule on voting by mail that would enable president trump [26:27] to hijack the postal service for his own political gain postal service is a proud tradition dating all the way [26:35] back to the civil war of successfully delivering absentee ballots in 2024 they securely delivered almost 100 [26:45] million ballots last year the postal service reaffirmed that its job is simply to transmit the mail [26:52] and explicitly said they do not administer elections the president's march executive order directs the [26:59] postal service to create quote new mail-in absentee participation lists which they will use to verify [27:07] which voters are eligible to receive and cast ballots through the mail this would give the postal service [27:14] unprecedented authority over american elections and is a unconstitutional subversion of the postal [27:21] services duty i'm disappointed that the postal service chose to give in to the president's illegal [27:27] demands by issuing a proposed regulation that risks disenfranchising millions of eligible american [27:34] voters nationwide the board of governors did not even vote on these approved changes under the proposed [27:42] rules states must submit each absentee voter to a new national database controlled by the postal service [27:49] and comply with new federal ballot mail-in requirements or they will be prohibited from using the mail-in voting [27:56] in their elections the postal service will also conduct undefined ballot verification processes [28:03] to ensure states meet these new federally imposed standards ultimately the federal government will serve [28:10] as the final arbiter as to who can actually vote by mail yesterday i led the entire democratic caucus to [28:18] once again insist that the postal service abandon its effort uphold the law and return to its core [28:24] functions the postal service has one mission to deliver the mail no matter who sends it no matter [28:31] where it's going mr steiner i urge you to demand these efforts and return the postal service to its [28:37] constitutional role of simply delivering the mail not acting as a partisan tool for the president and [28:45] lastly i would like to reiterate that the postal service must be transparent and responsive to [28:50] this committee so that we can work collaboratively on the many issues that we face i hope that today's [28:56] hearing will be a productive conversation about how we can work together to improve the financial position of the [29:01] postal service and it protect its ability to deliver for each and every american mr president is the practice of this [29:13] committee to swear in witnesses will you please rise and raise your right hand do you swear that the [29:20] testimony you will give before this committee will be the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth [29:24] so help you god thank you you may be seated david steiner is the 76th postmaster general of the [29:33] of the united states and chief executive officer of the u.s postal service he was appointed by the [29:39] organization's board of governors and began his tenure on july 15th 2025 in his role as postmaster general [29:45] steiner also serves as a member of the board of governors steiner is the former ceo of waste [29:50] management a 20.4 billion dollar waste and environmental services company operating throughout [29:55] north america with nearly 50 000 employees he was ceo from 2004 to 2016. mr steiner you are [30:03] recognized for your opening statement thank you so much good morning chairman paul ranking member peters [30:10] and and senators of the committee i appreciate the opportunity to discuss the future of the postal service [30:15] a venerated institution that has driven the growth of these united states for over 250 years longer [30:24] than the country itself the title of this hearing is apt the postal service has a broken business model [30:31] and we welcome the committee's focus on fixing it you know levers available to private sector enterprises [30:39] and to government agencies are unavailable to the postal service so for example first we're mandated by law to [30:47] deliver to deliver to every address more than 170 million of them six days a week and there are over [30:53] a million new stops added every year this leads to 84 percent of city delivery and 52 percent of rural [31:01] delivery routes being financially underwater moreover 58 percent or 18 000 of our post offices are losing [31:09] money incurring over two and a half billion dollars in operating costs in a normal business model if 70 [31:18] percent of routes are losing money you would adjust the routes in a normal business model if 60 percent of [31:25] the stores you had were losing money you'd close them we're not allowed to do either that is a broken [31:33] business model second we're not allowed to unilaterally raise prices and we're required by law [31:41] to give billions of dollars in discounts to many mailers third we can only invest our retirement assets [31:48] in u.s treasuries if we were able to invest conservatively in other assets we could have [31:54] had nearly one trillion dollars in additional retirement assets and our retirement plans would [32:00] be well overfunded rather than underfunded fourth we pay an unfair allocation of csrs benefits for [32:09] retirees that were with the post office department before it became the independent postal service that [32:16] costs us about three and a half billion dollars a year fifth we cannot borrow more than 15 billion [32:23] dollars due to a statutory limit that was established decades ago that has not been adjusted for earnings [32:28] or for inflation sixth we're not allowed to manage our workers compensation claims costing us anywhere [32:35] from 400 to 800 million dollars a year now despite all of these operational and accounting restraints [32:44] we're taking steps to fight our way back that includes reducing transportation costs [32:49] by two billion dollars we also reduced work hours by 56 million hours equivalent to three billion [32:56] dollars and reduced our overall head count by 28 000. we've also made dramatic progress in improving [33:03] our service scores recently hitting on-time delivery numbers not seen in at last in at least the last [33:10] five years this is significant progress but it's not enough and we will continue to drive costs [33:19] and drive service so to me the the choice for congress is clear either remove the mandates that create [33:28] the unsustainable business model or compensate the postal service for those money losing mandates [33:34] i will note that reimbursing the postal service for money losing mandates is not a novel idea in 1971 [33:42] congress foresaw that they would be asking the postal service to do things that were guaranteed to lose money [33:48] in return congress decided to pay the postal service 460 million dollars a year for those public [33:55] service mandates however this public service reimbursement has not been appropriated since the 1980s [34:02] our preferred proposal is that congress update this public service reimbursement to reflect the true [34:08] current costs of those mandates and allocate us those funds however we can also achieve profitability [34:18] if we remove the money losing mandates but doing so doesn't just affect the postal service but the [34:25] entire ecosystem around it that ecosystem supports two trillion dollars in revenue and eight million jobs [34:32] if the postal service reduces service and raises prices that ecosystem suffers jobs are lost and the [34:38] overall economy suffers so in closing i'm here to tell america that we can do anything they desire but we [34:46] can't afford to do everything they desire without more help the postal service has been an integral part of the [34:53] growth of america subsidizing the growth of steamships railroads aviation and technology so subsidizing the [35:00] post office has been a spectacular investment for the united states we believe this economic engine and that [35:07] investment is worth saving and we look forward to discussing with you how to best do so thank you mr [35:14] chairman and i'll be glad to take some questions thank you for your testimony we'll now proceed to [35:20] questions um there are things you can control and things you can't control and the mandates i frankly [35:26] would remove the mandates and and treat it more like a business i just remove them completely um even [35:31] some compromises you know you go from six days to five days you let you save three billion you go to [35:37] four days you save three billion another three billion that'd be six billion that's two-thirds of your annual debt [35:41] just by going to four days um you could let people pay if they want it six days they pay an extra thirty [35:47] dollars a month or fifty dollars a month to get it i think what you'd find is in the marketplace almost [35:51] nobody would pay they'd get used to getting it in four days but there are things you control um hiring [35:57] freeze um hiring freeze uh we see estimates as much as 1.8 billion a year and actually cumulative cumulative [36:05] costs going up higher why no hiring freeze uh we actually did institute hiring freeze probably [36:11] about 40 days ago um put out a memo not only with the hiring freeze but a spending freeze um how does [36:20] it work to have the postal rates change the the postal regulatory commission does it do you ask them to [36:27] do things what is the communication between the board of governors and the prc are they completely separate [36:32] how do rates go up yeah so um our rates are capped right now um our rates are capped by an inflation factor [36:41] and then a a a a number of stops basically type of do you submit something to them saying we're losing [36:47] money we're below with a market rate we have to go up do you well we we them yeah we recently so so [36:53] so it limits us as to what type of price increases we can get um we recently filed a petition and they [37:00] have undertaken a five-year review we recently filed a petition that said allow us to raise prices [37:06] to meet this this loss gap that we have um that uh petition is under is under consideration right [37:13] now i would hope that the prc would uh give it full consideration you know the the truth is uh mr [37:19] chairman that um in my opinion um the prc has not put the financial sustainability of the post office [37:27] first and and they will tell you they have a number of factors that they have to balance i completely [37:33] agree with that but at a time when we are failing um i think they should give more credence to to [37:42] allowing us to uh do the things that we need to do to to become profitable and they have prevented us [37:49] from doing a number of those things if some of the numbers were accurate you're telling us you would [37:53] have gone a long way towards uh reducing the nine billion saving two billion in transportation costs [37:59] saving three billion in hours that kind of goes along with hiring freeze that'd be half of your [38:03] deficit for the year but i don't i don't uh believe next year's deficit is going to be half of nine [38:08] yeah i mean you know look anyone that um you know i've i've been associated with a number of [38:12] businesses um ran a very large one for a long period of time and and the problem that you've got in [38:18] any business is that you've got inflation uh in your wage base you have inflation in your supplier base [38:24] you have a lot of different inflation so what you try to do is to get enough productivity to offset [38:30] that inflation in your cost base this year we will offset all but 0.2 percent of our cost uh increases [38:38] but the problem is in order to make money any business person go to any business school they [38:43] will tell you get productivity to offset your uh inflation in your cost base and then price and [38:49] volume can drop straight to the bottom line you become profitable so so currently i just want to be [38:53] clear there is a hiring freeze at the post office there is raising the price from 78 cents to 95 [39:00] generates about 1.6 billion hiring freeze about 1.8 billion in the first year goes up over time [39:06] 3 billion for each day reduced um you know i think the hiring freeze could have come earlier but at least [39:12] you will start saving some for from 40 days ago um there are some people reporting that um this really [39:20] isn't a full hiring freeze i would like details on exactly what a hiring freeze means to you to make [39:25] sure it means the same thing to us i think that when you and i had talked and when we had talked with [39:31] your staff coming into this what we really wanted was you to prepare for us this is where we spend our [39:36] money this is where we could reduce this i can do on my own and this i can do with congress's help [39:44] that's what i would do if i were in charge i would put out things and say well instead of just [39:48] complaining about the mandates tell us specifically you know it looks like for each one day it's three [39:52] billion dollars and um you know congress needs to address that part of this is congress's fault [39:59] you know because they have unrealistic mandates that make it hard for you but the previous postmaster [40:04] expanded the post office he made the post office bigger the only thing you really can control is you [40:10] can outsource not insource we have known that since the beginning of time it's not rocket science [40:15] contractors cost less than the government employees 80 of your cost is labor reducing labor is the only [40:21] thing you can do and contractors do it better i don't care if you outsource 98 of it and have no post [40:26] office and you're you're a shell for contracting because it's the only thing you can do because nothing [40:33] the post office does is efficient or makes money so what i would like is for you to send us a more [40:41] detailed this is the money that comes in this is what we would do this is what happens if the the rate [40:47] goes up we have sent a letter to the postal uh commission i really think that we ought to consider [40:53] combining it and just having one just have a board of governors have no postal rate commission just have [40:58] one commission the people run it should be setting the prices and there could be a veto power by [41:03] congress they didn't want to do it but the problem is when you vote on prices nobody wants our prices so [41:08] everybody wants to please the public and so everybody would always vote for lower prices [41:12] but then that's why we that's part of the reason why we're here so uh i hope you will at least pledge [41:18] to us that you'll send me a more detailed analysis of what you can do what you can't do because the [41:24] gist of what i got from you today is we just need to borrow more money and that to me is i think defeatism [41:29] and not something i'm interested in doing just loan you more money when you lose nine billion a year [41:34] it's not just you it's the mandates but it's also the system and you know the hiring freeze should [41:39] have that yeah i would have done that day one i still hear reports it's not a complete hiring freeze [41:44] so we pledge to send us more information on what exactly we need to do to make the post office [41:49] uh absolutely absolutely glad to do it and and you know senator um when i took this job i took it and [41:56] had the very narrow focus of how do we make the postal service profitable as i've gone through this job [42:04] i've recognized that you can't look at the postal service in isolation you have to look at the [42:09] postal service in the context of this two trillion dollar industry that is is virtually 100 dependent [42:16] upon the postal service and and so what i'm trying to figure out and i think what the discussion should [42:21] be is how do we do what is best for the american people and what's best for the american treasury right [42:28] how do we get the most net dollars into the treasury um and i wouldn't have told you this [42:35] even three months ago but i would tell you that today i think it's worth discussing whether [42:41] um having us act as act as an economic engine a development company if you will of this two [42:47] trillion dollar industry that surrounds us um if that wouldn't generate more net dollars generate more [42:53] net jobs generate more net service for the american public than um than reducing days of service and [43:01] reducing numbers of post offices now again well you know i'll do it i'll do it either way we can do it [43:06] either way you know but i think that's the discussion we could argue that the egyptians building the [43:10] pyramids created trillions of dollars and jobs you know um i think it's a false argument because the [43:16] money could be spent somewhere else so we could build pyramids we can build the post office bigger and [43:21] call it oh for every dollar we create another dollar but what you're ignoring is for every dollar you put [43:26] into government that dollar would have been spent much more effectively in the profit marketplace [43:30] senator peters mr general steiner the the postal services proposed vote by mail rule published on [43:41] june 2nd at the direction of the uh the president as i mentioned in my opening comments i believe should [43:47] concern every american this rule marks certainly an alarming departure from the postal services [43:54] a long-standing tradition of neutrally delivering all types of mail you get a piece of mail an address [44:01] on it you make sure it gets delivered to that address is in a timely fashion you don't ask any other [44:07] questions what this basically rule will do is going to turn the postal service however into a ballot [44:14] verification agency that's going to would control basically a master database of every american absentee voter [44:22] it would also give the postal service new power to determine whose ballots get delivered i think [44:29] the constitution is clear elections are to be administered by the states not the federal government [44:36] we have a tradition of our local communities and states administering these elections and once again [44:43] not the federal government so my question for you is under what legal authority can the postal service [44:48] regulate who and how people can vote by mail yeah you know as as you know our our regulations are [44:55] proposed regulations not final regulations um you know as to the authority i i used to be a lawyer but [45:01] i was a business lawyer not a constitutional lawyer and so i i would have to defer um that to the courts to [45:08] to understand the authority well i think it's clear that in the there's nowhere in the constitution there's no [45:14] federal law uh that the postal service is authorized to create these types of voter databases ballot [45:21] verification systems or mandatory standards it just simply doesn't exist it's hard to interpret a law [45:27] when it doesn't even exist there which is what we have just because president trump wants to do this does [45:32] not make it law doesn't make it right doesn't make it constitutional there there's a certainly a massive [45:40] difference between general mail requirements and regulating elections routine changes to the postal network [45:47] can have a small impact on election mail but this effort is a power grab to swap constitutionally [45:55] mandated state control for what the the president wants i think it's very clear so last year mr steiner [46:02] you issued a rule that explicitly said that the postal service has quote no role uh in administering [46:09] elections what is what has changed um i don't think anything has changed you know uh senator i'm not a [46:17] political person and the the postal service is not a political organization we as you said i think you [46:23] quite aptly said we deliver mail that's what we do we deliver mail and um that's what ballots are ballots [46:30] are mail now they are a special kind of mail obviously they need special care and so years ago we recommended [46:39] what we call kit 600 and kit 600 the fundamental premises of kit 600 is a unique barcode and a unique [46:46] envelope um that allows us to move those ballots more efficiently more securely [46:52] that is what our proposed rules uh suggest is that we have unique barcode unique envelope and [47:01] that is not something that is new that's something that's been being used by states throughout the country [47:07] on both sides of the political spectrum so california has followed it oregon has followed it arizona has [47:14] followed it florida has followed it among many other states and so um you know to me it's not a [47:23] political question it's it's a question of how do we most efficiently and securely move ballots we've [47:30] been recommending this for for many years all this does is make it a requirement well well certainly best [47:38] practices are different than having a mandatory requirement you could follow best practices to deliver it more [47:43] efficiently without having control of vast voter rolls and having the ability to have that data this [47:49] is basically a backdoor way for the federal government to get voting information that states control under [47:54] the u.s constitution so yes or no if if a state refuses to turn their absentee voter list over to the [48:01] federal government will the postal service still mail their ballots uh under this proposal group under our [48:07] proposed regulation no we would tell the state that we need the manifest in order to you know look [48:13] what what we're asking that that that's that's the answer you'd tell no so the proposed rule basically [48:20] coerces states to conform to these new requirements and hand over their absentee voter rolls or face the [48:27] consequences of not being able to vote by mail some states that's all they do oregon is completely vote by [48:33] mail if they say no we control the list the states control the list we're not going to give oregon has [48:38] followed 600 since the day they started voting by mail this is a different issue this will be a lot [48:44] different issue you're telling these states either give the federal government this information trust [48:49] the federal government trust the trump administration we'll take good care of these and if you don't do [48:55] it you can't mail absentee ballots you're going to make a decision that people cannot vote by mail that's [49:00] unacceptable well thank you mr chairman all that does senator is make sure that we match the ballots [49:06] that a state believes they're sending out to what actually gets sent out right and so all the state [49:12] gives us is a list of here are the the voters that are supposed to get ballots and here are the ballots [49:18] we then compare the two make sure that that the ballots that are supposed to be sent get sent you [49:22] know if maryland had followed that they probably wouldn't be in the problem they're in today so [49:28] it is a much more efficient a much more effective way to make sure that states i would think that [49:34] states would want the information to ensure that the ballots that they think are sending out are the [49:41] ballots that are actually being sent out well they do know what they're dropping mail i think they can [49:46] understand that they they think if they put an address with their voter rolls on a piece of mail for a [49:52] ballot and give it to you they do expect you're actually going to deliver it you don't have to say we [49:57] want all of your information we want that information in in our control you mentioned maryland i think [50:02] that was a printing error this this regulation wouldn't have done nothing to fix what happened [50:07] in maryland the states control their own elections that's pretty clear in the constitution and an effort [50:13] by this administration to nationalize elections and have the federal government having this information [50:19] is incredibly dangerous precedent you can imagine sharing this information with the department of [50:23] homeland security and using this these lists for a variety of nefarious purposes we need to protect [50:30] the integrity of the voting rolls we need to protect the separation of elections from federal government [50:36] ensure that our state and local governments are the one administering their own elections that's what [50:40] this is about well we we are the postal service all we do is deliver mail we're trying to deliver it [50:47] securely efficiently and accurately senator johnson postmaster general steiner welcome the committee [50:56] thank you for taking on this very thankless task and bringing your business acumen to the to the table [51:02] here um from my standpoint there's two problems there's the operational problem there's the unfunded [51:09] liability problem and if there's a root cause to any of this it's because congress who has allowed us [51:16] become 39 trillion dollars in debt tries to micromanage the uh postal service with the mandates with all [51:22] kinds of other things so uh i would agree with president or with uh chairman paul i would love to see [51:28] you use your you know take take you know set the mandates the congressional uh requirements aside and just [51:35] use your business acumen and go this is what we would need to do to make the postal system solvent [51:41] operationally again i mean this is a business has been losing revenue losing volume for years and [51:48] this isn't something new okay so that's that'd be my request as well as you know give us a detailed [51:53] plan forget all the congressional mandates but what would you do as a business person looking at this [51:58] as a business let's talk about the unfunded liability when i became chairman of a of this committee [52:04] in 2015 got a lot of pressure to do postal reform and the post reform always was a taxpayer bailout which [52:12] would not fix it would not address the operational uh in 2022 we did post reform and we offloaded [52:19] about 107 billion dollars of the unfund liability into medicare which by the way is not particularly [52:25] solvent either um we still have 166 billion dollar unfund liability correct that's correct um how many [52:37] years does somebody have to work in the postal service before they can retire on full for retirement pay [52:41] i don't plan to be here that long so i never asked that question i'm not i'm not you do not know [52:48] i do not know okay i think it's pretty short do you know what it was in your business pardon do you [52:52] know what it was in the waste management in waste management we had we didn't have a retirement plan we [52:58] had 401ks okay well anyway it'd be interesting to have that information you know what what is the postal [53:05] service what is you know average in private sector because i think one of the problems is i do believe [53:10] senator i believe and and i may misspeak but i believe you start vesting at five years i'm not [53:16] sure when you fully vest but i'd like to know that because that that's key information in terms [53:22] and then you compare it against the private sector um i have to bring this up i know the house passed a [53:29] bill uh with 74 additional zip codes you know we get requests you know city wants your own zip code [53:36] uh you respond to this committee i think the cost of setting that up would be 800 million dollars and [53:41] in 90 million dollars a year when you're hemorrhaging billions of dollars a year can you just describe [53:45] for the committee the problem in these i'll call them vanity zip codes sure and and first off i i do [53:53] believe that we have some alternate type of solutions that we can do other than doing a their own dedicated [53:59] zip code and so we'd love to have our staff speak with um with your staff or or with any of the other [54:04] members of the senate or congress that um that are looking at their own individualized zip code i think [54:09] we can come up with some other solutions the the problem you know it's interesting because um you [54:15] know being the newbie here you would think new zip code pretty simple right uh the problem is every [54:21] single digit in that zip code means something and so um if you change a digit what do you have to do you [54:28] have to put a receiving facility there to receive that mail right and then as you go through our process [54:35] remember 110 billion pieces every year call it 300 and some odd million pieces every single day our [54:43] machines are set up by zip code so that boxes get transported to zip codes you start adding zip codes [54:50] what do you have to do you have to start adding more bays and more boxes not in one plant but in every [54:57] plant throughout the united states that's why you know that 800 billion of capital that it would cost to do [55:02] it sounds like a crazy number it's not a crazy number because you have to make that change everywhere [55:09] throughout the system and so um what we're trying to do is to come up with ways where we can do it [55:17] without a zip code you know part of the reason why folks want their own zip code have nothing to do with [55:23] the mail it's because it might give them different insurance rates right let's let's address the underlying [55:30] problem rather than adding another 800 billion dollars of cost to the program was that 800 billion [55:36] or million i'm sorry 800 million that's what i thought so again just to underscore we we did a [55:41] post-reform bill in 2022 107 billion dollars offload the american taxpayer it didn't even come close to [55:49] solving the problem i think we need to really focus on that again that's that's what i resisted during [55:53] my chairmanship now i'm not going to do until you fix the problem 107 billion dollars didn't even touch [55:58] the problem yeah and and you know i think it's i think that is a perfect example of of how we got [56:03] where we are right the problems that were fixed there were what i call the accounting problems right [56:08] welfare retirement different things like that they weren't the operational problems that plague the [56:13] post office right the mandates that i talked about in my opening remarks and so that bill took care [56:19] of a lot of the accounting issues not all of them at the expense of the american taxpayer it actually [56:24] but it exacerbated the operational problem how did it do that it required six day a week delivery [56:30] and so instead of you know what i'm here to say is let's have the discussion on how we holistically [56:36] look at fixing both the accounting issues and fix the operational issues because the operational issues [56:42] have not been addressed in in the prior reform acts thank you senator hassan well thank you mr [56:48] chair and ranking member peters for this hearing and welcome and it's good to see you mr steiner [56:54] as you already discussed with senator peters the postal service recently proposed a rule that would [57:00] allow it to unilaterally block ballots from being sent to certain voters before they ever have the [57:07] chance to cast a vote this un-american plan will inevitably result in some law-abiding u.s citizens [57:14] not being able to receive the ballots they're entitled to and reduce citizen participation in our democracy [57:20] and in my state of new hampshire where people vote absentee only if they are physically unable to be [57:25] at the polls on election day and often don't know that that will be the case until kind of the [57:30] 11th hour it means that some eligible voters will be unable to vote in my state the plan is also [57:38] blatantly illegal the constitution is clear that states are responsible for elections not the postal service [57:44] so i'll join with other colleagues in urging you to immediately withdraw this rule but even setting [57:51] aside the merits of the rule and your own views about whether it is legal i want to ask a more basic [57:56] question about the rule of law if a court tells you to withdraw your rule or to not enforce it will [58:02] you follow that court order obviously we've yes we follow court orders good okay moving on [58:08] on time delivery for first class mail in the new hampshire region has fallen by more than 10 percentage [58:15] points over the last eight years and is now more than five percentage points below the postal service's [58:21] own target of 87 percent that means nearly one in five letters are failing to arrive on time prior efforts [58:29] including cuts to overtime and moving some mail processing out of new hampshire likely have contributed to [58:35] those delays as congress considers options to address the postal services financial deficit those [58:41] options will depend on your commitments to meet certain service levels and i think you laid that out [58:46] today pretty well what specific commitments can you make to maintaining on-time delivery in rural areas [58:53] and how can this committee hold you to them yeah i mean you know we don't want to maintain uh on-time [58:58] delivery we want we want to improve on-time delivery because it really is you know to me that is the [59:03] calling card of the postal service right that is the price of admission that we have if we can't [59:10] effectively and efficiently serve our customers then i i completely agree with you you shouldn't uh [59:16] give us any help and so you know as i've looked at it um big part of what we've got going on is the fact [59:26] that we don't have end-to-end visibility and that is sort of what i've called the moon shot at the postal [59:32] service now is how do we get end-to-end visibility because what happens i won't go into a lot of [59:38] detail but what happens is when that box that's going to new hampshire gets delivered and then you [59:44] know it's supposed to go first in first out and then another hundred boxes get delivered it gets [59:49] buried somewhere and so just because my time is limited sure what commitments can you make to [59:55] maintaining or improving on-time delivery in rural areas and again what do you need from this committee [1:00:00] and if you can be brief and we can follow up after the committee if necessary yeah no look i i would [1:00:04] love to have there are so many different categories of first class mail i'd love to have that let's make [1:00:08] sure you know we should be delivering at least as well as our competition delivers packages you know so [1:00:15] we're talking sort of nine right and look rural america depends on the post office for a whole lot of [1:00:20] things that last mile of delivery is critically important we're talking about people's medications we're [1:00:25] talking about payments for small businesses and supplies so this is really important to us so let [1:00:30] me just move on to one other issue and i want to follow up on the you know on that last line of [1:00:35] questioning with you and and get some details and get some commitments but during your house testimony on [1:00:41] march 17th you committed to giving congress five-year financial projections on cost-cutting measures [1:00:46] in a subsequent letter the committee asks you to respond by this friday getting timely analysis is [1:00:51] critical for congress to act on your request and understand the impacts of possible reforms on the [1:00:57] services provided to our constituents will you meet friday's deadline um yes i think we can meet [1:01:02] friday's deadline okay to be honest with you i've been spent the last couple days studying for this so [1:01:06] i haven't had a chance to look at that but we'll we'll get you we'll get you something by well so so [1:01:11] have you read the analysis i mean it was due friday and if you think you're going to meet the deadline [1:01:15] yes and so so what we've put together is basically um you know is basically here's what our our uh [1:01:22] trend line is and then here are the things that can move that trend line up or down price volume [1:01:27] productivity um and so you know what we can get you is here's the trend here's how we think we can bend [1:01:34] that trend positively or negatively so so let me i think that's exactly what let me yeah what cost [1:01:40] cutting measures have you identified as part of the analysis and what impact would they have on [1:01:44] the projected date that you'll run out of cash yeah i mean when you look at what we're doing from a [1:01:49] cost cutting point of view it really for us is all about the effective and efficient movement of the [1:01:55] mail and so um you've got to look at the various right but what specific measures have you identified [1:02:01] and what does that do in terms of the long time projection from when you're running right so let's [1:02:05] start with let's start let's walk through if you want we can walk through the entire sort of mail system [1:02:10] so you've got the carriers right the carriers that deliver mail that pick up mail um you know we [1:02:16] look all the time at how do we make those routes more efficient then you go to the processing plants [1:02:20] we're looking at how do we make that more efficient obviously you have to have investments in technology [1:02:25] and then that mail gets transported we're looking at how do you take out transportation costs um you know [1:02:30] as i mentioned we've taken out two billion dollars in transportation costs and then um you've got it [1:02:35] showing up again at another plant where it ultimately gets delivered by the carrier you know that full [1:02:40] cycle we look at every single phase of it so you have proposals in this letter and and i realize [1:02:46] i'm a little over time so what does that what do those proposals do to the projection of when you'll [1:02:51] run out of money are you going to be able to be solvent for longer yeah you know you know i i do want to [1:02:58] clear up a misconception because you know i think the prc testified that we've got cash to last us a [1:03:04] certain amount of time let me make it be very very very very clear we are out of cash we are out of [1:03:12] cash if we had to pay all of our bills today we could not pay all of our bills today we are out of [1:03:19] cash what we are doing right now is we're basically borrowing money from our retirement plans for to to [1:03:27] fund current operations i'm not particularly comfortable with that i promise you our employees [1:03:32] are not particularly comfortable and neither am i you know you all shouldn't be comfortable with [1:03:35] that none of us should be comfortable with that to me that's why we have to have this discussion of [1:03:40] how we fix this broken business model so i am over time i want to follow up with you and i hope you [1:03:45] will be more clear about what what the savings you think will do in terms of your cash flow and cash [1:03:51] solvency glad to come glad to come meet with you uh at any time you'd like to uh have that discussion [1:03:57] glad to do it senator langford mr chairman thank you david thanks thanks for stepping into this role [1:04:02] and taking this on this is a tough task to be able to take on i'm always interested when we in congress [1:04:07] are talking to usps about how you balance your budget i find that always ironic for us to be able [1:04:13] to be in that conversation as a body that has two trillion dollars worth of overspending this year [1:04:18] and i wasn't going to bring that no i i will i will it is it is uh it is a challenge that we got to be [1:04:25] able to figure out i want to be able to drill down on multiple things here uh part of the challenge [1:04:30] that you're facing is not only the complexity of the organization the number of people that are in [1:04:34] the organization the equipment that are there the out-of-date buildings and all the other things that [1:04:39] are there that make this incredibly expensive to be able to manage but the lack of flexibility to be [1:04:45] able to actually help fix this so i want to drill down on a couple things in the short time that you've [1:04:50] been there so far we're dealing with um over the last 10 years and you've only been there months [1:04:56] at this point but over the last 10 years delivery has gotten slower as well so we've got increasing [1:05:02] amounts of expenses and decreasing speed of service in the same time period amazon and walmart are racing [1:05:09] to try to get deliveries to people's homes in two hours and it's now taken five days for a lot of folks in [1:05:16] rural america to be able to get a letter moving where i used to take two in the past as you're [1:05:20] dealing with the debt in other areas this has got to be one of the areas you're focused on as well [1:05:23] it's just speed of delivery because that increases the volume of people actually using that where are [1:05:28] you going on that yeah and that's what i was talking about the moonshot the visibility right i mean [1:05:33] um the reason why well let's let's let's look at the context first um fedex amazon uh ups you know [1:05:41] deliver call it anywhere from maybe eight to ten billion packages a year we deliver 110 billion [1:05:49] pieces every year so the magnitude the difference in this in the networks is dramatic um and so for us [1:05:57] it's all about visibility um we've got to know where that piece of mail is at any particular point [1:06:04] in time because what happens is it gets shoved to the back of the line and forgotten and so we are [1:06:09] working on it right now to where we can get visibility into every piece so that um if we [1:06:14] see that a piece is delayed we can call that plant manager and say the piece is delayed you know this [1:06:19] is not this is not rocket science technology this is not technology that doesn't exist this is technology [1:06:25] that exists that other companies use again because we've under invested in the network because we don't [1:06:31] have the cash we haven't been able to get that end-to-end visibility that is absolutely where our focus [1:06:38] is right now okay uh it's interesting to me there's been an ongoing dialogue for a while about zip codes [1:06:45] and this has been fascinating for me and a lot of it's really based around uh tax collection quite [1:06:50] frankly uh online uh businesses and trying to be able to get tax revenue to that local community [1:06:56] and let me just give you a couple ideas we have a beautiful community in northern oklahoma call enid [1:07:02] vance air force base is there great community uh fantastic folks there's also north enid [1:07:08] which is a different town and everybody just thinks no it's the northern part of enid no it's not [1:07:13] it's a totally different town same zip code by the way and the confusion is always there between north [1:07:18] enid and enid to try to figure out where's tax revenue going everything else they base it on zip [1:07:22] code collection on this this has been an interesting thing they're not looking for a new post office [1:07:26] they're not looking for a new physical location they're trying to do better tracking of where [1:07:30] actually revenue should go and how that should actually flow i can give you lots of different [1:07:34] ideas like the fabulous community of hochetown in southeastern oklahoma which is a great resort [1:07:40] community around the lake they're also connected to broken bow same zip code on it they're trying to [1:07:44] figure out they're totally different uh operations between broken bow and between hochetown on it [1:07:50] but the tax revenue is all going to one how do we solve this this they're not looking for a new [1:07:54] physical place they're just looking for a different number on this why is this so hard yeah i mean [1:07:59] uh you know as i said earlier every number means something in that zip code right and and our [1:08:05] entire network so those 110 billion pieces only move because every number means something and every [1:08:13] time you add a new zip code what do you have to do you have to add something to the network right that's [1:08:18] why you know when i first heard that it would cost 800 million dollars to to fix all these zip codes i [1:08:24] thought well that's that's crazy um but it's true because you don't fix there is not one light [1:08:31] switch that you flip and say okay now the mail goes there you've got to change the entire network [1:08:37] and that takes a lot is that a technology issue just from out-of-date technology because just about [1:08:42] every other system you change some numbers on it and it's it's not technology it's physical assets [1:08:47] right and so so for example we'll have a sorter that's lined up and it would have called 24 bays in it [1:08:53] right you add zip codes you got to add a 25th bay a 26th bay a 27th bay because those boxes are going [1:08:59] to that specific zip code and you don't have to add that in one plant you have to add that in every [1:09:04] plant and so um it's the multiplying effect uh of the capital that's required you know we are and i [1:09:11] would love to have our staff sit with your staff and again with with any of the any members of congress [1:09:16] let's let's figure out a way because the underlying problem is insurance rates taxes it's not [1:09:23] delivery of mail the underlying problem is not our problem would love to have us all get together [1:09:30] and say how can we fix this and change it without having to massively change our system yeah look i [1:09:37] look forward to that conversation on we've had some good dialogue before about the electric vehicles that [1:09:42] were purchased by previous administration with no chargers and some of the waste that was done there [1:09:46] that should have been actually going towards actually improving the quality of delivery on this rather [1:09:51] than towards some other random goal that wasn't met so thanks again for your work thank you senator kim [1:09:58] thank you chairman thank you for coming before us here i want to just start by asking you about the [1:10:05] census you know this is something that's so vitally important to our country explicitly stated within [1:10:10] the constitution as a function of our government here the census bureau is currently testing the use [1:10:16] of postal workers to conduct the census is that correct that is correct is that something you [1:10:22] approved it is yes absolutely and so i i guess i wanted to ask you because this was looked into this [1:10:28] was you know examined during the first trump administration what was the outcome of that pilot [1:10:34] during the first trump administration i i'm not familiar with any pilot that was done in the first [1:10:39] administration i obviously wasn't here so i i'd hate to speak to that what i can tell you is that we are in the [1:10:45] middle of the pilots right now um there's two they're small pilots but in one we actually have [1:10:53] um we we tell our our mail carriers you can become an enumerator um so you have your current job you can [1:10:59] also be an enumerator and in the other pilot we're using our our carriers um to get follow-up information [1:11:07] from addresses um they're both actually going fairly well look the discussion only the only discussions i've [1:11:13] ever had about this is how do we do it more efficiently and less costly for the american [1:11:19] public we'll see if we can do that through the pilots but you would think that it would make sense [1:11:23] that we could do it more efficiently and cheaper because we're already going look i'm all for [1:11:28] efficiency and for saving money but again this is a function of our government that's laid out in the [1:11:33] constitution and i'll be honest with you it concerns me that you were not aware of a pilot program that did [1:11:40] exactly try to do exactly this uh in the first trump administration because you know look i you know [1:11:46] there's i'm just going through the census government report right now and there's a recommendation [1:11:53] section here and it says all pilot activities were discontinued based on the irreconcilable conflicts [1:11:59] of the requirements of 13 usc and 18 and 39 usc so i guess i just want to ask you you can tell me what [1:12:09] those are because i don't know what see but this is what see like this is not like you don't come [1:12:13] to us for the cheat codes here like this is something that you should be aware of as you are [1:12:19] i am absolutely aware of it okay so tell me tell me what legal department is absolutely aware of it [1:12:24] so tell me that no one has said anything about us violating any particular statute are you can you [1:12:31] tell me what the difference is between title 39 and title 13 then i'm not a lawyer no i could not [1:12:36] well i used to be a lawyer well i'm not a lawyer either but i know the difference and so what i'll [1:12:41] just tell you is that when we what we have is title 39 allows the postal service to share information with [1:12:48] law enforcement and others during circumstances in contrast title 13 explicitly forbids sharing of [1:12:55] individuals census data for any purpose the reason i raise this is that the pilots that you're trying to [1:13:01] do down in huntsville and spartanburg we've gone through this several years ago and as mentioned [1:13:09] they were discontinued based off of irreconcilable conflicts between these two so the question is if [1:13:15] if we're trying to do if you're trying to move forward with this what's different are you seeking [1:13:20] legislative fixes are there other things you're doing that would try to show this yeah no i am [1:13:25] absolutely glad to get our staff together with your staff i know that um those were issues i know [1:13:31] that the oath was an issue and i know that our legal department and the department of commerces and the [1:13:36] census bureau's legal departments looked at those issues resolved those issues i cannot tell you the [1:13:43] fundamental underpinnings of the legal statutes that do that but absolutely glad to have anyone on [1:13:50] yourself look i'll follow i'll follow i'll follow with your team you know i'm the the ranking member [1:13:56] in the subcommittee that oversees the census which is why we've been so focused on this sure if okay [1:14:01] with you i'd like to make sure that we have congressional oversight to be able to do a visit to these uh [1:14:07] pilot programs and be able to learn more is that something you can agree to sure absolutely okay well [1:14:12] look the other thing i'll just say here and i just want to raise this is that you know we've been [1:14:17] having some issues down at the trenton processing facility there was an osha inspection some continued [1:14:24] things that haven't been remedied and i've been hearing from some of my constituents there i just [1:14:30] wanted to ask would you be able to ensure that you'll work with me to make sure that anything that [1:14:35] is continually outstanding in terms of the concerns uh that were raised are ones that we can remedy yes [1:14:42] thank you for bringing that thank you for bringing that my attention look um safety is our number one [1:14:47] priority if there's some issues there um i won't send you to my staff to follow up on that call me [1:14:52] and i'll make sure we follow up okay well i'll make sure we get each other's numbers we'll follow [1:14:56] back up okay thank you okay thank you all you'll bet senator scott thank you thank thanks for being here [1:15:03] all right so um i don't understand how business loses money i i just doesn't make any sense to me so [1:15:10] if you if you couldn't get any more money out of the government all right and they and we didn't let [1:15:16] you borrow more money because if you borrow more money ultimately what you know what that's going [1:15:21] to happen the postal office i've been up here seven years it never makes money so it's they'll come [1:15:26] ask for a bailout right so so so we're not fixing anything nothing's getting there's no real solution [1:15:33] here so if you could if there were no limitations on what you could do what would you do so um you may [1:15:41] have seen the the press reports we actually brought in um the preeminent restructuring firm in the in the [1:15:48] world um to look and tell us exactly that you know let's assume that we aren't going to get any help [1:15:55] what are we going to do um you know they're in the process of putting that report together i would tell you [1:16:01] that um there is absolutely no doubt that that would lead to um a stream down postal service it would [1:16:13] lead to um delays in service i mean there's look the as as as the chairman uh very appropriately pointed [1:16:21] out 80 percent of our costs are labor costs there's only one way you can become profitable here and that's [1:16:27] address the labor costs and so uh we would have to go in and look at how we can uh change days of [1:16:34] service um you know reduce the level of services and we would have to shut down a massive number of post [1:16:41] offices so um all right so let's take i i looked on a report i've got that you're if you look at the [1:16:49] number of pieces on on marketing mail versus the revenue it's dramatically less per piece than first [1:16:56] class so why is that i don't first off i'm sure we all love all the marketing mail we get um because [1:17:03] i have i have to get an extra recycling bin for it my old business we loved that by the way uh yeah [1:17:09] please that's probably good for you you just recycle it people don't look at it [1:17:16] but um you know it is the antiquated pricing structure that is imposed upon us by the prc and so you [1:17:24] know uh to to the chairman who's the prc why the postal regulatory commission why do what so who's [1:17:29] that um they were set up in 19 in the when the postal service was split so that they could oversee [1:17:36] this quote-unquote monopoly now you know in 1971 arguably we were a monopoly there is zero chance that [1:17:44] we are a monopoly at this point in time and so i i completely agree with the chairman it seems to me [1:17:50] that we have a regulatory body that is regulating in a past era um so why would they want you to [1:17:57] make money well they've got a what i've understood from them and i won't profess to speak for them [1:18:05] they say they have to balance a number of things but marketing marketing mail right so here's the balance [1:18:12] that they did last they they told us we can only raise prices once a year and they acknowledged that [1:18:20] that that could be 700 million dollars to the postal service that could cost us 700 million dollars in [1:18:28] their opinion they said um but that doesn't make a big dent in their total loss so we're gonna do it [1:18:36] who does that benefit it benefits the marketing mailers right that's 700 million dollars that got [1:18:40] transferred from us directly to our customers no you know we got transferred to the taxpayers of the [1:18:45] country that's who got transferred to the taxpayers paid for right because we're gonna have to cover [1:18:51] we're gonna have to cover your losses that's absolutely correct and so so i think i think your [1:18:56] point is absolutely correct um you know a normal business takes price and volume and finds the best mix [1:19:05] why are they in existence why do you need them because we don't need them but they are in existence uh [1:19:10] you know ostensibly again i won't speak for them but ostensibly because we are a monopoly and they [1:19:16] have to regulate the monopoly how many how many um how many marketing contracts have you lost at fedex [1:19:22] and ups for you just for marketing mail oh no marketing mail we we are the only ones that deliver [1:19:28] marketing mail we do have a monopoly on the mailbox no one can you can't charge whatever price [1:19:34] no and you have to charge less than first class absolutely so a letter i want to send to my grandkid [1:19:40] okay cost me more than the marketing stuff i don't want to read absolutely and and and senator [1:19:46] you would not believe how arcane and complicated those pricing rules are because there's so many [1:19:51] different classes and so many different discounts um you know you definitely need a you definitely need [1:19:57] advanced degree to understand them and i don't okay and you acknowledge if you go borrow money ultimately [1:20:02] all you're saying is if we go borrow money you're going to go come back later and ask for the taxpayer to [1:20:06] pay for it right well no you know i truly believe and and this is uh you know in in defense of the mailing [1:20:13] industry i truly believe that um if we if we become an economic engine rather than uh just thinking [1:20:23] of us in terms of delivery um and we help grow that industry it is a two trillion dollar industry [1:20:30] and and actually the marketing that they do is very effective um we can make it more effective [1:20:37] if we can manage the price they should pay for it if they're going to make money off of it they should [1:20:41] pay for it and and i would hope they do pay for it through paying taxes and and no look and look i [1:20:48] completely agree on the price piece too we have to match price and volume that's best for us [1:20:55] but i truly do believe that this two trillion dollar ecosystem we have a choice to either shrink [1:21:01] it or grow it it's been shrinking for the last 15 years if it continues to shrink shrink net dollars [1:21:07] into the treasury get reduced i think it's a i think it's a discussion worth having and and look [1:21:13] you all get to make those policy decisions i'll do it either way um but i do think it's a discussion [1:21:19] worth having all right thank you so rick i think you've hit on this you know you if you combine [1:21:25] the prc with the board of governors make it one entity they can make their prices what they need [1:21:30] if you go from 78 cents to 95 cents that's 1.6 billion if you go from six days to four days [1:21:36] that's six billion you've almost wiped out your entire debt by going to four days and by allowing [1:21:42] the price to go up just two changes would do it you could even allow people still to keep six days if [1:21:47] they want to pay for it but you know you'll find that there's not going to be a lot of votes to allow [1:21:52] that to happen and so we prevent them from letting it happen hiring freeze also says 1.5 billion [1:21:58] there's all kinds of things that can be done that immediately could wipe out your 9 billion [1:22:02] but you probably would have to go to less days of delivery it would be thing the price helps [1:22:06] that's 1.6 billion of 9 billion or nine and a half billion [1:22:16] we've looked a little bit at that too senator slotkin thank you um thank you for being here [1:22:23] um you know i think you've heard in a bipartisan way the importance of the postal service particularly [1:22:31] to rural americans it's a lifeline um and i just you know i hearing you talk about how there's going [1:22:38] to need to be reductions in service because you don't have the cash um you know when most americans [1:22:45] have just watched us you know launch a war that we think is going to cost at least 80 billion dollars [1:22:52] you can imagine how that hits to someone who says how do we not have the ability to to fund my rural [1:23:02] postal delivery so i can get my medication um or vital information in my post post box um but we we [1:23:10] somehow have money for everything else so um i i encourage you to to advocate and push back where you can [1:23:18] and we want you to succeed we want the post office to succeed but i want to follow up on some of the [1:23:23] lines of questioning that we had on this side of the aisle um particularly from senator peters on [1:23:29] the role of the u.s post office in our elections because i can't think of something that's more [1:23:35] important than our democracy and making sure we have free and fair elections but the u.s postal service [1:23:41] is now part of this bigger story of this president desperate to federalize our elections um he has [1:23:51] tried every which way uh to say that if he and his party don't win in these november elections they were [1:23:58] rigged he said it in the state of the union um and now we have this new rule that you've put out saying [1:24:05] that states have to turn over their voting rolls and and you the u.s postal service will decide okay [1:24:11] who's approved to send their ballot through the mail it's just another backdoor way of trying to [1:24:18] influence this election and to show the level of obsession that this president has he's literally left [1:24:24] the leader mr thune senator thune on the stage right now and canceled the signing of a housing bill [1:24:30] like eight minutes ago until we pass uh the save act this obsession he has which will disenfranchise [1:24:40] huge number of voters so he's obsessed with this and he's pulled in the u.s postal service [1:24:45] have you ever voted by mail um i have not do you believe um that a piece of mail that's put in a [1:24:53] mailbox should be sent no matter what do you believe that is your obligation you know we have a lot of [1:25:01] different rules i mean you know if you want a yes or no answer i'd say no i mean obviously if it's [1:25:06] dangerous if it doesn't i'm not talking about inflammatory thing a letter that is not a threat just a piece [1:25:12] of mail that is not a weapon it's not a threat um it's a ballot do you believe right now it is your [1:25:19] obligation to send that ballot to its intended recipient yeah we send every piece of mail that we [1:25:27] send in accordance with our regulations and and the mailman but the state of michigan's about to start [1:25:33] mail-in voting end of end of june for our primary um if a 60 year old woman in grayling michigan puts that [1:25:41] ballot uh after june june 25th into one of the u.s postal services mailboxes as she's done for many [1:25:49] elections do will you direct the postal service to deliver that ballot i don't have to direct the [1:25:58] postal service to do that because we do that every day that is exactly what so then why are you asking [1:26:03] demanding actually that for michigan's voter rolls and other states to be presented to you the [1:26:08] the president has sued us okay um we're in court right now he sued us in a bunch of other states [1:26:14] for our voting roles so he's he's uh obsessed with this um the constitution gives the right to states [1:26:21] to execute elections um so you are a pawn in this unfortunately i don't think you're a bad person from [1:26:28] what i know of you you run a big company but you are part of a much bigger story that's playing out [1:26:33] literally on a stage right now um and so if you don't get michigan's voter rolls um for the general [1:26:40] election in november will you move those ballots in your mailboxes remember right now we only have a [1:26:47] proposed rule so there are no new rules but have you proposed it we will move though you you've proposed [1:26:54] it we did okay so we will we will move those ballots in accordance with whatever rule is in effect [1:27:00] at that point in time so but you proposed it it's your rule right we did yes okay so you want it to [1:27:06] pass yes i mean as i said before um this is not something that's new this is something that we've [1:27:12] been recommending for many many many years and again it's it's a it's a process that is followed [1:27:20] by a lot of states already states like california and oregon states like i think again you're conflating [1:27:27] i think some of the things i i have no problem with a barcode being put on a piece of mail and [1:27:32] following it like that but i i just think it's important to understand especially since you are [1:27:36] a lawyer not this kind of lawyer but you are a lawyer um that you are being used as part of a much bigger [1:27:43] story that this president is trying to play out um where he does not believe elections that he loses [1:27:50] are valid elections he he's willing to do just about anything to show that he's actually a big [1:27:57] winner no matter what he does and i just ask you as a professional as someone who's done serious things [1:28:02] in your life please push back on being a pawn in this authoritarian playbook the postal service [1:28:09] is one of the most important institutions in our country don't taint it with the obsession of this [1:28:15] one man please push back yield back senator ernst thank you postmaster general uh for being here today [1:28:24] we've talked a little bit about the rural delivery i think so many of us have constituents that reside [1:28:30] outside of that 50 mile perimeter that the post office uh wanted us to focus uh their deliveries on [1:28:39] around those regional processing and distribution centers that's basically what uh the delivering for [1:28:45] america plan did and unfortunately it's left a lot of our rural americans behind uh because again they [1:28:53] live outside of those 50 mile circles around these distribution centers um and in early 2025 i think the [1:29:04] the prc the postal regulatory commission seemed to agree with the problem and it recommended that the [1:29:11] postal service reconsider its plan the dfa plan because so many of those rural communities will [1:29:19] experience disproportionate downgrading of service standards and we have seen that um so postmaster [1:29:27] general what is the postal service doing under your leadership now to make sure that we're protecting [1:29:34] the delivery to all of our rural constituents yeah and and you know it's a it's a great question and it's [1:29:41] not just rural constituents it's all constituents right we have not um been as good as we should be [1:29:47] in delivering to all of america and as i look at it and again i've i've been here 10 months i would [1:29:54] say that i've been here uh not a long period of time but long enough to be able to see the core issue [1:30:01] right and the core issue is that we built this vast network the network we built is logistics 101 right [1:30:10] it is hub and spoke which has been every single logistics company in the history of the world [1:30:16] since 1955 when delta airlines invented it every logistics company uses it so the the system that [1:30:22] we've put in place makes total sense the problem is we didn't learn how to operate that system [1:30:31] as we were building it right and so um and so what you've seen over the last 18 months [1:30:38] is really some pretty dramatic increases in our service uh service rates um because we're actually [1:30:45] starting to understand how to manage the network effectively you'll continue to see that um you'll [1:30:51] continue to see improvements in service but but i will tell you what what irritates me more than anything [1:31:00] is what we call the tail of the mail right i don't think that constituents care if they get their mail in [1:31:05] two days or three days or three days or four days what they care about is when they get that wedding [1:31:10] invitation after the wedding right they get a bill and it's already overdue yeah and that is a different [1:31:17] animal that is not a network issue that's a visibility of the peace issue and that's where we're a hundred [1:31:24] percent focused right now because i would tell you i would rather have um i would rather have [1:31:32] one hundred percent of the mail delivered within a reasonable period of time than saying let's [1:31:37] just have 95 delivered in a certain period of time the other five percent we don't care exactly [1:31:42] no and i appreciate that we've got to modernize um i understand the hub and spoke uh logistical [1:31:49] model that's important but we realize as demographics shift or population shift and there [1:31:55] just has to be modernization along the way um i'm going to hit on the zip code issue as well i know [1:32:02] everyone has issues with this i have a bill uh with several other colleagues this year to correct a [1:32:08] number of those zip codes and i'm going to hit on a community in iowa that's been experiencing a lot of [1:32:15] difficulties urbandale iowa it was incorporated in 1917 became a community so well over a century now [1:32:22] this community of 47 000 people has six different zip codes and the mail is continuously directed to [1:32:31] the wrong post offices um so mail is ending up in the next community over and people are chasing down [1:32:40] the mail um they have people that have to leave their school to go drive to the next community over to [1:32:47] get uh their their uh postal deliveries uh we have medical centers that have mail misdirected to [1:32:56] another community so it has been a big issue and the city has routinely been ignored and they have [1:33:04] exhausted all of their appeals now uh so it has been a really big issue and the post office continually [1:33:11] comes back and says oh no it's about tax collection or whatever okay a lot of excuses out there [1:33:17] but i'm sorry this is one community with six different postal codes it's 47 000 people it's got [1:33:24] to be addressed um we shouldn't have to pass this legislation to direct to address this situation but [1:33:30] we're going to have to because we feel we've been ignored and put off for way too long um so i'm just [1:33:36] raising that issue in front of you today to so you understand this is a great frustration with i think [1:33:43] in this bill we have i don't know how many communities maybe 75 communities we're going to try [1:33:48] and address um and then i also want to address what senator scott brought up talking about the marketing [1:33:55] mail i actually do have a bill that would address this and help you out considerably so it's a bill [1:34:01] addressing political junk mail because i'm sorry republicans and democrats alike we're sending out a lot of [1:34:08] flyers at a discounted price and we should disallow that okay political committees um you name it our own [1:34:18] committees we should have to pay the full price to send out the political junk mail and you know i i enjoy [1:34:25] it i'm in i'm in this world but you know what when i get those political flyers in the mail at home [1:34:30] i also am using the recycling bin okay so uh again it my bill would um require the postal service to send [1:34:41] mail from those qualified political committees at a regular rate so uh we see 2.3 billion pieces of [1:34:50] political mail every single year and that would certainly contribute to your revenue stream if we got [1:34:56] rid of that discounted rate it is the amazing thing that i say about this organization is that [1:35:01] it's the law of large numbers right 2.3 billion times a small amount a big amount it is a huge amount [1:35:08] yeah i mean it's it's really the amazing thing about this organization when you think of 110 billion [1:35:12] pieces it doesn't take a lot to to create a lot of revenue exactly i am well over my time thank you [1:35:19] for indulging senator thank you thank you thank you mr mr steiner uh in san luis arizona the post [1:35:25] service does not provide home or mail delivery that means that residents are forced to retrieve [1:35:29] mail from appeal box and local post office 40 years ago san luis was 2 000 people it is now 35 000 [1:35:36] people it's on the border of the arizona mexico border as a result san luis's sole post office is [1:35:42] heavily congested and running out of space and capacity and also because of backups at the border [1:35:47] when people are crossing the border in the morning or in the evening trying to go back especially our day [1:35:52] laborers that whole street basically becomes a wall it's nearly impossible for our uh residents [1:35:58] in san luis to either go east or west along that so i've heard this multiple times uh and it's affecting [1:36:03] people be able to who can have multiple jobs are disabled veterans are having tough times getting to [1:36:08] pick up their checks and it's caused a lot of love heartache we've been asking the post office for [1:36:14] you know almost generations now to ask asses do you think that the post office can find the time [1:36:20] the money and the focus to actually add more home delivery in this booming town of 35 000. yeah i [1:36:27] mean look it to me that is the fundamental question of why we're here today right you know i said it [1:36:34] before to the chairman's point how do you reduce costs right um a long time ago remember 170 million [1:36:44] points of delivery every year growing by a million every year at the same time that volumes of [1:36:52] mail are decreasing by five to eight percent compounded that is a recipe for disaster the math [1:36:59] does not work there except the math is not evenly distributed i mean it's not evenly distributed [1:37:05] yeah because there are areas i'm more than happy i'm because our areas of the country are growing [1:37:09] versus not going so like if you look at your western states right texas nevada arizona conversation with [1:37:15] you we need to realize like i said in my comments we can do whatever you want we will do whatever you [1:37:21] want who's going to pay for it right and those are the decisions that we have to make every day [1:37:28] absolutely glad to personally take a look at the situation that you're talking about [1:37:33] individually i'd actually invite you to come down look at it i have to look at it collectively i can't [1:37:38] look at it as 30 000 stops i've got to look at it as 170 million right but again because it [1:37:44] because it's not evenly distributed where growth versus not growth i think actually being able to see [1:37:49] and zero in especially the amount of data you have you could actually find some solutions here [1:37:54] and in terms of money love to love to talk with you all to see and in terms of money it's it that [1:37:58] springs very hollow to these communities when they see ballrooms they see jets they see stupid wars [1:38:04] getting started and all this money being spent and all they're asking is for what everyone else gets [1:38:10] by the way the reason this hurts them is because they see all the other communities around them and [1:38:14] they all get home delivery right and they all get home delivery of things that they need now and now [1:38:19] especially what we're seeing like the the increase in home deliveries of prescription drugs for [1:38:23] example uh we're literally affecting people's health people are missing the opportunity to get [1:38:29] their timely prescriptions this is a rural town it's tough for them to get a lot of stuff [1:38:33] mail is one of the few things that actually can be consistent but over time it's just gotten worse [1:38:38] and worse and worse so i encourage you i know you have this whole world you gotta look at i get it [1:38:43] come down to san luis arizona come down at 4 p.m and see what these residents have been dealing with [1:38:49] for almost 40 years and i guarantee you there could be a solution to it and and maybe it's another so [1:38:54] maybe it's it's trying to do something on the other side of the street but anything at this point would [1:38:58] be best because like these families are really being affected and starting to affect business everything [1:39:02] else like that and of that nature glad glad to have that conversation senator moreno thank you mr chairman [1:39:09] and thank you uh postmaster general for being here if maybe offer a suggestion um if you'd be willing [1:39:14] to uh work with our office and our team let's put together the ideas that you have i i'm intrigued by [1:39:19] your incredible success in the business world let's put together these ideas how do we put the package [1:39:24] of reforms together and uh move the ball forward and finally get something done right because you know [1:39:29] one of the things about politics that's different than business is there's a lot of people who love [1:39:32] to talk talk talk here uh but uh very seldom they actually like to take action i would like to work with [1:39:37] you to get actually some meaningful things done well thank you now i when i came in it was interesting [1:39:41] i had this my team puts together this very fancy binder is about post office reform uh but the hearing [1:39:47] has turned into a mail-in balloting conversation uh and principles of the constitution which is very [1:39:54] very heartwarming to somebody who swore an oath to the constitution when i became a u.s citizen i was 18. [1:39:59] uh so so are you familiar by any chance i don't don't expect you but just in case there was a bill [1:40:04] that uh the democrats brought up during the biden administration and as you know bills are [1:40:09] numbered so uh bill number one is the first one they do and then i think we're now in bill number [1:40:14] 5000 but it's called hr1 and then it was also s1 so meaning it was the number one priority of [1:40:22] democrats in the house and democrats in the senate do you remember what that bill is about i don't you [1:40:26] wouldn't i wouldn't expect you to i was like you a business guy to pay attention all this stuff [1:40:30] it was called the for the people act the democrats are phenomenal at false advertising uh so what the [1:40:36] for the people did is it basically nationalized our elections so this bill that they had that was [1:40:42] their number one priority was about nationalizing the elections so i know that we live in a world [1:40:48] where there's supreme hypocrisy but the idea that democrat witness after democrat witness instead [1:40:54] of talking about how to fix the post office we're talking about the scandalous idea that somehow [1:41:00] states rights were being violated and yet three years ago they wanted to take over the entire [1:41:06] election system the united states of america not to give it more voter integrity but to diminish [1:41:12] voter integrity universal mail-out ballots unsolicited ballots that would go out automatic voter [1:41:17] registration regardless of whether there's a test to see that person is a citizen and and then [1:41:23] and mr chairman you were here you'll remember they couldn't get it passed because of course here you [1:41:30] have to get 60 votes right we have to get 60 votes so what do the democrats advocate for what do they [1:41:36] fight for to get this passed they want to get rid of the filibuster they want to get rid of the [1:41:42] filibuster so that they could pass nationalized elections three years later all of them are testifying to [1:41:48] say it's outrageous president trump's trying to nationalize our election he's not he's trying to get [1:41:53] rid of voter fraud how dare you guys talk about getting rid of the filibuster if it wasn't for chris [1:41:58] kirsten cinema and joe manchin that would have happened they would have made dc and puerto rico [1:42:04] a state they would have packed our supreme court but now all of a sudden they dug up from their [1:42:10] bottom desk drawer the united states constitution and they're appalled as they're here talking to you [1:42:15] it's a a total disgrace but so let me get back should we get back to post office stuff now absolutely [1:42:21] that's a good let's talk about the post office how do you see the post office's role in combating [1:42:27] scams illicit activity how do you see that from your lens yeah um so we have a the postal inspection [1:42:34] service by the way the longest uh established uh law enforcement agency in the united states [1:42:40] and and they're looking at that constantly um as you can imagine you know a lot of those scams go after [1:42:49] the most vault the most vulnerable shut-ins older folks um and you know we're looking at it [1:42:55] uh i've i've talked with our our chief inspector and where we're moving now is more toward hiring [1:43:03] agents not that have a gun and knock on a door but hiring agents that have a keypad and work on a [1:43:11] computer you know we get um a lot of information um through mail covers and different things like that [1:43:18] where we can find you know the question is not how do we stop it after it happens but how can we start to [1:43:25] figure out how to stop it before it happens right so so we've got um um a number of inspectors working [1:43:32] on just that well by the way thank you for doing that and so you view it not just hey our job is to [1:43:38] deliver anything but because there are scammers out there there are bad actors out there and you're you [1:43:45] do have an important role to say hey if somebody's being targeted with a scam or there's some untoward [1:43:51] activity drugs congratulations you guys have knocked out a lot of what the drug cartels do [1:43:56] sending illicit drugs through the mail you view that as a very important piece of what the post [1:44:01] office does absolutely right is that just hey anything's mailed i don't care what it is we're [1:44:05] just going to let it go through it correct well you know obviously we have rules on what we can and [1:44:09] can't do um but yes we i we do absolutely view our role as making sure that we protect the american [1:44:17] public yeah i mean you don't want to uh stop those four dollar uh offers for two large pizzas even [1:44:22] though maybe it's unhealthy right but but you have a role play making sure bad stuff doesn't happen so [1:44:28] transitioning to that if the post office inspector were to look at unsolicited mail and mail out ballots [1:44:37] where you go to an apartment complex and one unit is receiving six ballots that's a problem right meaning [1:44:47] if there's only one human being that lives in that apartment and that one human being is receiving six [1:44:52] ballots none of which are in their name because they've been turnover of movement you wouldn't just [1:44:57] say suggest and i my democrat colleagues have left elvis has left the building here but you would not [1:45:03] suggest that that one person receive ballots that they didn't ask for that aren't even in their name you [1:45:12] would view that and go wow this is a problem correct well we would you know anytime we see [1:45:17] what we would consider potential illegal activity obviously there's search warrants there's different [1:45:23] rules you have to follow um but uh you know that's what our postal inspection service is there for is [1:45:30] to look for those type of situations and you know we don't open mail we don't stop the delivery of mail [1:45:39] but we can certainly go to other agencies from a law enforcement point of view say hey this is a [1:45:44] problem we're seeing this we're seeing this potentially illegal activity yeah no i totally [1:45:48] understand you know i just want to uh give a quick antidote i i was asked by the government to go down [1:45:53] to uh where i was born columbia south america and monitor the election down there uh they don't allow [1:45:57] mail-in balloting and i asked the registrar i said well why uh don't you allow people to vote by mail [1:46:05] there's some people who can't get to the polling locations etc and obviously we're in columbia so we're [1:46:09] speaking spanish he turned to his aide and said i don't think uh the senator is saying the right [1:46:14] words i'm not understanding his question so i repeated it and he looked at me quizzically and he [1:46:20] said well if you just mailed somebody a ballot without knowing who they were who's receiving it [1:46:25] that would open the door to massive fraud you'd have to be totally and completely insane to run an [1:46:30] election that way this is a country with the gdp of the size of la lecturing the united states of america [1:46:37] on why our elections should be run better and i think we should look at that as a moment of [1:46:40] opportunity senator holling thank you mr chairman uh general welcome good to see you i want to show [1:46:47] you a picture if i could just to start this is north st louis missouri this is april 29th of this year [1:46:58] this is right around north taylor avenue this is a pile of mail thousands of pieces of mail tax [1:47:06] documents prescription drugs bills utility communications from companies thousands and [1:47:14] thousands of documents as you might imagine the residents of st louis when this was discovered [1:47:21] on april 29th were absolutely outraged not least because the mail has been slow and not delivered [1:47:26] and missing targets for years now and here we have thousands of pieces of mail some of the [1:47:32] postmarks here this wasn't going across the country you have letters here that were just going [1:47:37] across town that had been dumped in this pile now the postal service promised the public and me [1:47:45] when this was discovered that there'd be a full accounting of this we would find out what [1:47:49] happened and we'd have a full and total investigation and complete transparency and since that time [1:47:56] i've heard nothing that was april i've heard nothing what's the answer my answer would be when you put up [1:48:04] that in front of me i'm outraged what have you done and i think everybody in the postal service [1:48:11] that that bleeds postal blue would be outraged well but what have you done about that was months ago [1:48:17] what have you done since then since this is the first time i've heard about it how is this possibly [1:48:21] the first time you've heard about it since i've written to you members of the delegation have [1:48:25] written to you listen i get thousands of pieces of mail a week about the post office people's mail not [1:48:32] being delivered here it is in a pile and you're telling me this is the first time you've heard about [1:48:38] it it's june time i've heard about it don't you think that's kind of exceptional what's going on [1:48:45] in the management of the postal service senator because you don't know i don't think i have heard [1:48:49] about it what's going on in the management of the postal service that you've got a pile of thousands [1:48:55] of pieces of mail in a major city and this is the first time you're the postmaster general that [1:49:01] you're telling me it's the first time you've heard about it who works for you 600 what's going [1:49:05] on 640 000 people well maybe you want to fire some of them do you think that this is doing the job [1:49:12] i think that's outrageous you're missing your targets all over my state let's take a look at [1:49:16] another picture your targets for on-time delivery in my state which were not good to begin with are [1:49:23] just in the 90s meaning that you could miss it 10 of the time and give yourself an a grade but start [1:49:27] looking there in 2024 2025 you're hitting your on-time delivery targets 76 of the time maybe that means [1:49:35] fully a quarter of the time best case scenario people's mail in my state is not being delivered to [1:49:40] them on time is this acceptable it's absolutely not exactly why is it not changing it is changing [1:49:47] if you actually look at the numbers you'll see the numbers have been increasing it is not changing [1:49:55] that's this year that is april of this year just last year the inspector general when i asked him to [1:50:01] do an audit of the st louis distribution center the inspector general told me it was the worst case of [1:50:08] lack of on-time delivery the worst case of distribution problems he had ever seen ever [1:50:13] in an audit that he had done ever what's been changed since then um if you look at the service [1:50:18] scores i would commend you to go online we publish our service no i don't want to go online i want you [1:50:23] to come here with answers because you're the postmaster general of the united states i don't want to have [1:50:27] you come here and be told you don't know what's going on in my home state when i have written to you [1:50:32] when i have called you when my residents have called you and asked you when they're paying their taxes [1:50:36] and they're paying these postal service marks and increases i don't want to be told go online [1:50:42] i want answers and the other thing i want to know is why are you getting bonuses and members of your [1:50:47] staff getting bonuses for this kind of performance let's take a look just look at the numbers the [1:50:53] postmaster generals of this country in the last 10 years have got 10 years have gotten bonuses over 2 [1:50:57] million dollars you got a bonus last year 305 781 dollars why why are you getting bonuses [1:51:09] when my constituents can't get the mail senator i don't control bonuses our board of governors [1:51:18] pledge not to take them pardon me will you pledge not to take them um will you pledge to reward our [1:51:25] people oh no no no no no no no don't turn it around you are in charge of the postal service and [1:51:30] we have given you everything you've asked for just three years ago this congress allotted tens of [1:51:36] billions of dollars to the postal service i'm glad you think it's funny postmaster general you think [1:51:42] that this situation is funny let the record reflect the postmaster general is laughing as he gets asked [1:51:46] why he's taking bonuses while there's piles of undelivered mail in my state it's a disgrace [1:51:52] it is an absolute disgrace let the record reflect that i was laughing when you said we've been given [1:51:57] everything we've asked for you have been given an opportunity to deliver the mail and you're here [1:52:02] laughing about it you are here telling me you don't know you're unprepared and let the record reflect [1:52:08] you won't pledge not to take bonuses so you're going to keep on taking them is that what you're [1:52:11] telling me yes or no will you refuse bonuses so long as the mail goes undelivered any piece of mail [1:52:18] yes or no will you refuse bonuses until the mail gets delivered yes or no what mail oh this is [1:52:26] extraordinary in other words you don't know you want the money unbelievable unbelievable unbelievable [1:52:33] i am absolutely astounded at this today general well you should be and frankly if things don't get [1:52:40] better you ought to resign because you're not doing the job you're leaving your good postal workers out [1:52:45] there you're hanging them out to dry they don't make near what you do they're working their butts [1:52:50] off they're getting blamed and you're getting the bonus we got a big problem time has expired based [1:52:56] on what i've seen today you're part of it i have a follow-up question on this the the piles of mail [1:53:03] that were depicted in the picture i guess near st louis can you look at that mail and find out uh the [1:53:10] day it was supposed to be delivered and who the delivery person was yes absolutely absolutely so and i [1:53:16] would expect you know i do not know every detail of every piece of mail that no but i would expect [1:53:22] that there has been my follow-up question is is i think uh the senator and the the committee deserves [1:53:29] to know so i would think within a week you should be able to get back to us with a report because it [1:53:35] would take me about 30 minutes to look at that mail and the address and the time stamp and to say joe smith [1:53:42] was delivering the mail that day and joe smith dumped it and really joe smith should be indicted by now [1:53:46] because i'm guessing that's felony to i would totally agree with you yeah so but will you get [1:53:53] back to us within a week i think senator i think we can get back to you within an hour my guess is [1:53:58] that our folks know exactly what's going on there all right and if it doesn't involve an indictment [1:54:03] we're going to want to know why and why someone if that person still works for the post office that's [1:54:09] a problem i would like to know that too if that's the case but see what you can do on that absolutely [1:54:14] you mentioned uh that you've hired a preeminent restructuring firm and they're they've completed [1:54:19] a report for you pardon me you said you had hired a uh preeminent restructuring firm to look at the [1:54:26] post office has that report been given to you um no they're in the process of putting that together [1:54:31] when when will that be completed um i'm not absolutely sure but i'm i'm certain that there's a lot of [1:54:38] findings in draft form but i'm not i haven't asked them when will that uh will that report be sent to [1:54:45] us i'm glad to do it i would send it to to the committee uh you can start with the chair and the [1:54:52] ranking member and then others who want it as well um because that's exactly what we need is someone you [1:54:58] know uh somebody who restructures a business that's what you do if you're at waste management losing [1:55:04] money but you would react and i really think ultimately it's part of the answer but i think [1:55:09] it's also when we have these hearings there still is too much of oh well congress hasn't let me do all [1:55:15] these things so i can't there there is truth to that and congress should but there's also truth to [1:55:21] the fact that the hiring freeze can save three billion a year you say it's in place let's make sure [1:55:26] we'd like the information to know that it is a you know i understand if the vice president of the post [1:55:33] office resigned you've replaced them but most all the other jobs through attrition we also should [1:55:38] have a concerted strategy the only way to save money the government is not efficient they're not [1:55:44] bad people but you don't have a profit motive and you have too many restrictions so you will never not [1:55:50] you but the post office will never be efficient they will never be good at anything the only way [1:55:54] to make them more efficient is to outsource to companies that have to make a profit and so you [1:55:59] have to look at this and you have to aggressively do it you have to aggressively do the opposite of [1:56:04] what dejoy was doing and so you you have to aggressively do the things you're allowed to do [1:56:10] so hiring freeze and outsourcing are the the two simple things you can do anything you can stop that he put [1:56:17] in place that isn't already going you you are i don't think there's the hope that you're going to you [1:56:23] know somehow out compete amazon or ups or something and so you really shouldn't be trying to get more into [1:56:28] their business you should be trying to have less business period and you should have tried to less [1:56:33] have less of the government doing any business that you're involved with because i think you'd still [1:56:38] lose money if you outsourced 100 you'd still lose money um and i'm more than interested in you know the [1:56:46] idea of combining the prc it would take legislation to do that but in the meantime um everything within [1:56:52] your power to bug the prc uh as well as talking to us as well to get the permission to raise the rates [1:56:59] nobody likes higher rates but we also don't like a nine billion dollar you know loss every year so all [1:57:05] these things have to be done if we truly were saving i think you said uh two billion on transportation [1:57:13] and three billion on hiring that would be five billion that would mean that the deficit this coming [1:57:18] year would be about four instead of nine uh what's well and then and then remember if we are allowed [1:57:24] to invest our our furs assets just in a very conservative manner and if the csrs allocation gets [1:57:32] done the way it should be done that everybody agrees it should be done that eliminates about 60 percent of [1:57:38] the loss right there but my guess is it won't be four billion next year what's the projection for the [1:57:45] when when do you total up your deficit for the year is it with our fiscal calendar september 30th or when [1:57:50] yes and and and again we look at it controllable non-controllable right um so but but i know but [1:57:55] there's a number so last year it was what nine and a half billion if the controllable was closer to three [1:58:02] the deficit we just got to go with the deficit for the year nine and a half billion we can't paper it [1:58:06] over or make it something it's not so nine and a half billion what's your projection for it in the [1:58:11] current year we're in well again you know because of the actuarial of the accounting stuff um you know [1:58:19] i don't pay attention to the non-controllable loss and we pay attention to the controllable loss we're [1:58:24] thinking that's around 2.7 uh 2.7 2.8 billion what's the deficit going to be though what what are you [1:58:32] going to lose this year is it going to be still be around again we you have to look at retirement [1:58:36] actuarial numbers but it will be it'll be you know it'll be in that nine to ten billion dollar number [1:58:42] so you can see how just sort of hearing these numbers they don't really add up if you've saved [1:58:46] two billion on transportation and it was nine and a half last year then you'd be at seven and a half [1:58:50] well you got to cover inflation right you've got inflation i know but the thing is is the numbers [1:58:54] aren't adding up so i agree you're trying to do some savings but if you had two plus three that's five [1:59:01] minus 9.5 you'd be at 4.5 the numbers aren't adding up so the deficit's going to be just as bad [1:59:07] next next year as it was the last year and it's getting worse and so all of these things it is [1:59:13] crunch time but you really have to show us that you're doing everything possible and you have to [1:59:20] reverse what dejoy did to joy messed it up and made it worse he broke it it was already broken and he [1:59:27] rebroke it and scrambled it into a thousand pieces you've got to do the opposite of everything he was [1:59:32] doing everything he was doing was making the post office lose more money and you are constrained but [1:59:39] outsourcing to a company that has to make a profit is one way to save money and not hiring anybody and [1:59:46] trying to get the employees to do the work and then ultimately really the country needs to address [1:59:51] the situation you can fix your bottom line by going to four days delivery and i think at first [1:59:56] people would be upset by that some people might be some people be happy that they get less junk mail [2:00:02] frankly and um you could still offer six day delivery if people are willing to pay the service for it [2:00:08] you know have a have a fee if you want six day and four days is free you know or so-called free [2:00:14] and all of a sudden you're would change overnight now i know you can't do that but when we see the [2:00:20] the report from the preeminent restructuring firm whoever that is um they should be addressing [2:00:25] that because that's how you fix it you know and you can call it controllable and uncontrollable [2:00:30] but you have to put you know it's important for us to see both controllables on you uncontrollables [2:00:38] on us and i hope that's part of their report if it's not i hope you will ask them to make that part [2:00:44] of your report and i talked so long that i have another member here man i should have quit five [2:00:49] minutes ago nothing personal oh oh boy i get to stay longer nothing personal senator senator blumenthal [2:00:55] i mr chairman i didn't want to interrupt your eloquent closing by making my entrance uh before now [2:01:06] let me ask you uh first a question which i think applies generally to your performance in the job will [2:01:15] you commit that when we have specific questions about post offices about postal service in connecticut [2:01:25] or elsewhere that you will respond within a timely period absolutely and i and i hope we've been doing [2:01:35] that and i know you've probably been asked um uh about that in the past um i want to ask you about [2:01:47] the recent executive order i'm sure you've been asked about it so far and i apologize i've been in [2:01:52] a judiciary committee meeting but um the united states postal service is not an election administration [2:02:01] agency is it no absolutely not and you have no constitutional authority to review ballots or deny [2:02:14] postal service to someone mailing in a ballot do you um i don't remember my constitutional law class that [2:02:20] well so i would have to defer that to lawyers well i think you know enough constitutional law to answer [2:02:27] this question the united states postal service has no role whatsoever in reviewing balloting or mail-in [2:02:36] ballots uh under current law does it i and i'm not trying to be i'm not trying to be obtuse here but [2:02:46] reviewing i'm not sure what you mean by reviewing well uh the president's executive order [2:02:53] says that the postal service should somehow review voter lists and then refuse to deliver mail in effect [2:03:02] no um we don't review the voter list so the the voter list for us is like a manifest right and so [2:03:09] the state gives us the list of voters that they want ballots to go to and then they give us the ballots [2:03:15] we match the ballots with the list and we can tell the state yes you all the ballots that you say are [2:03:20] going to the right people are going or no different ballots are going or maybe you missed some [2:03:25] ballots you know it's what i said earlier it it really is trying to help the state make sure [2:03:31] that the ballots that they send to the voters actually get there and get to those voters and and [2:03:37] and so it's it's strictly a manifest for us to make sure that the right ballots are going to the right [2:03:44] people and do you have authority to deny delivery of ballots um not under the current rules our our [2:03:54] our our proposed rules would say that if we don't have that manifest um that we can't move the mail [2:04:01] but you're not going to deliver you're not going to refuse to deliver ballots to a voter that the [2:04:09] states say is registered yeah absolutely not and you're not going to review the legitimacy of whether [2:04:18] someone is properly registered no not our function we deliver mail and what if states say to you we [2:04:26] would just assume you not do that kind of review do the the manifest and the ballots correct under the [2:04:37] proposed rule um we would then not deliver that mail well you would refuse to deliver mail if states would [2:04:45] prefer that you not do the matching yeah if they don't comply with a valid rule again as you know [2:04:52] the rules their proposed rules they're not final rules we have a comment period that we're looking at [2:04:57] but under the under the proposed rules that would be correct you agree with the proposed rule um you [2:05:04] know i think when what i think is that we need to be efficient and accurate in moving ballots you know when [2:05:12] you look at what we've suggested to states now for years and years and years and years it is [2:05:19] exactly this rule you know if you look at it um whether it's connecticut michigan california we have [2:05:25] something we call kit 600 and and we we have a lot of people that educate your folks in the state as to [2:05:32] how to do it that the kit 600 recommends unique barcodes unique envelope well this is not if the state of [2:05:38] connecticut says to you we want you to deliver mail-in ballots without conducting your purported [2:05:49] supposed so-called review which is unconstitutional you will deliver the mail to connecticut voters is [2:05:57] that correct i'm i'm confused under the proposed rule or under current rules under the constitution of [2:06:05] the united states you have an obligation you run the postal service you deliver the mail you don't [2:06:11] review ballots or registration nobody said you should the founding fathers didn't envision that [2:06:17] kind of review this proposed rule is bogus and i want your commitment that you will deliver the mail [2:06:24] including mail-in ballots to connecticut voters without conducting this bogus sham review yeah look [2:06:34] we'll deliver every piece of mail that that meets our then current regulations well your regulations should not [2:06:41] include a review or second guessing the state on who its electors are correct i think that our proposed [2:06:51] rule um is is as you know subject to litigation we'll we'll see how that all turns out well i guess [2:06:58] we will see but it will probably be in court thank you mr chairman i'd like to thank mr steiner for [2:07:05] joining us today to share his testimony with the committee the record for this hearing will remain open [2:07:09] until 5 p.m on friday june 26 2026 for the submission of statements and questions for the record the [2:07:15] hearing is now adjourned thank you