The Postal Service has lost money for 15 years. Congress passed a bill to reform it

When Sen. Jerry Moran travels through rural Kansas, he normally stops at the town post office.

He sees it as an anchor for a community, a place where people pass in and out over the course of the day.

"There's a social aspect to a post office," Moran said. "And that's not the primary function of the Postal Service but it is an important asset to the community that they recognize as mattering to them and their future."

Moran has been concerned about the decline of the postal service for the past decade. Years of financial struggles have led to years of service cuts. Processing facilities have been shuttered, sending mail to Nebraska or Missouri just so it can reach the next town over. Hours have been reduced. There have been threats to close offices and reduce service to fewer days in the week.

On Tuesday, Congress passed a bipartisan bill — co-sponsored by Moran — to overhaul the U.S. Postal Service in an attempt to shore up the finances of an agency that has faced 15 straight years of financial losses.

The Postal Service Reform Act of 2022 sheds government of the obligation to pre-fund Post Office retiree benefits 75 years in advance and requires future postal service retirees to enroll in Medicare. Right now about a quarter of retirees use private insurance.

Moran said he hopes the bill, which also requires the Postal Service to provide six-day a week service and modernize their website to be more transparent, will help stabilize the agency so it can start to reopen processing facilities and provide better service.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., hailed the bill the most significant step Congress has taken to fix the agency.

"When the Postal Service suffers, America suffers," Schumer said on the Senate floor.

Rural communities have been particularly hard hit by cuts over the years, placing residents who depend on the mail for things like their prescription drugs at risk of losing services.

The Postal Service published a list of more than 130 post offices in Kansas that were at risk of being shut down because of the agency's financial troubles. Ultimately, officials decided to reduce hours at certain sites and no Kansas offices were closed.

Still, the Postal Service faces significant financial difficulties. Americans sent 73.5 billion fewer pieces of mail in 2020 than they did in 2008. While there has been an increase in the number of packages sent by U.S.P.S., there has been a drop off in first class and marketing mail, which has contributed to their budget shortfall.

Moran said he has had colleagues advocate for cutting service to unprofitable areas, , an idea he rejects.

"The Postal Service was designed to raise enough revenue for the places in which there is a lot of business to subsidize the places that there isn't a lot of business," Moran said. "Because what we're supposed to have is a postal service nationwide."

The bill passed with overwhelming support in both the Senate and the House of Representatives. In the House, 92 Republicans voted against the bill, including Kansas Reps. Ron Estes and Tracey Mann and Missouri Reps. Billy Long and Jason Smith.

Rep. Sharice Davids, whose mother was a postal worker, said the bill would reform an agency that has suffered from "catastrophic mismanagement" over the years.

"This bill will not only improve reliability and transparency for Kansans who rely on the USPS for their medications, bills, and business operations—it will also save taxpayers $1.5 billion over the next decade," Davids said.