On the recordApril 25, 2012
and all of my colleagues here, this amendment is the only one that will give us a chance to save, truly, the American Postal Service. It is the only one. It is a 2-year prohibition against closing any of our post offices and postal services. A lot of good things have been done and a lot of amendments have been made already that nibble around the edges. This is the only amendment that basically says: For a 2-year period, you have to sit down and restructure this. Now, $200 million is what they are talking about. I can go in many different directions with this, but that is 1 day in Afghanistan. This is what the little State of West Virginia will lose: 150 post offices. They are saying: Well, we have a 1-year moratorium. We can restructure this and show where the savings should be. I have a lot of different ideas on where the savings can be, but I can tell you right now that we can start with former Postmaster General Potter, who earned $501,000. That is more than the President of the United States. There are a lot of savings at the top end of this. But we could save these. If you take these lifelines away--and this is all that people have. They get their medicine and they get everything they do and depend on their lifelines with these post offices. They have nothing else. Their towns have just about gone away except for that connection. And I am asking basically for my colleagues to consider keeping these lifelines.…
