Hurd: We Must Support USPS and Enact a Long-Term Fix to Keep it Around
I recently supported a short-term measure to help the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) during the COVID19 pandemic, but also advocated to enact a long-term fix to keep USPS solvent. The House of Representatives voted on the Delivering for America Act (H.R. 8015) recently, which authorizes $25 billion to USPS to help with additional needs due to the pandemic and the upcoming election.
USPS provides prescriptions, absentee ballots, cleaning products, birthday cards, a method to pay bills and so much more to the American people, and they’re doing this throughout the pandemic. America’s postal service is essential, and, like always, I will continue to support them.
This additional money is a short-term measure for USPS, which will help this vital institution as we continue to battle this pandemic. But, beyond this, we must enact a long-term fix for USPS. Bipartisan reform bills have been proposed in the past, like the Postal Service Reform Act of 2017 introduced by members including former Congressmen Meadows and Cummings, but House leadership has failed to bring forward any of these meaningful and necessary solutions.
I also elaborated about the critical role USPS plays in America’s elections and shared his opinion that every voter should have the ability to request a mail-in ballot due to the pandemic.
We should be making it easier to vote rather than putting up barriers. Exercising our civic duty in unprecedented times requires unprecedented measures. The solution is for every state to allow voters to request a mail-in ballot due to COVID-19 health risks, not haphazardly mailing out ballots.