Department of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2019

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Chair, I claim time in opposition to the amendment.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Chair, sadly, the provisions contained in this amendment would block the Postal Service from running a pilot program designed to improve operations and save taxpayers money, like allowing travelers to submit passport applications at post offices across the country. It would severely limit the potential of one of our most essential, constitutionally mandated government agencies, and hurt our communities and our citizens in the process.

I represent not only countless letter carriers, but thousands of Ohioans who rely on the Postal Service for timely delivery of their Social Security checks, electric bills, and birthday cards from loved ones.

Expanding the services provided at our Nation's post offices would achieve two ends: supporting a great Federal job provider, and helping our communities and citizens at the same time.

At a time when banks and other institutions are abandoning inner cities and rural communities, in my district alone, post offices present a perfect medium to collocate, including with traditional banks or credit unions.

For example, in my home State, 18.6 percent of Cleveland households have no checking or savings account, and 24.1 percent of households are under-banked, forced to use costly payday and auto title firms or currency exchange stores to cash paychecks or make consumer loans. More than 35 percent of Cleveland's 389,000 residents live below the Federal poverty line.

Many post offices are located in bank deserts. Fifty-nine percent of post offices are in ZIP Codes with either zero banks or only one bank branch.

By giving the Postal Service the opportunity to serve our communities in a more expansive capacity, we could also put the Postal Service back on the right track financially, bring back hundreds of American jobs, and, in so doing, restore faith in one of our most fundamental government services.

The Postal Service is already providing an impressive, expansive, and affordable service to all the American people--and by the American people, by the way. I am fighting in Congress to support the hardworking employees of the Postal Service and our citizens, especially in underserved communities across not just my district, but our country.

It is really horrendous to go into communities that have no financial services, where people are being ripped off every day.

Mr. Chair, I hope my colleagues will join me in this effort and oppose this misguided amendment.

Mr. Chair, I yield my remaining time to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Connolly), a very able and intelligent Congressman.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Chair, as the designee of Ranking Member Lowey, I move to strike the last word.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Chair, I would just like to respond to the gentleman. The offer of this amendment should never be on an appropriation bill. This is one of these extraneous riders that belongs in other bills, and it is very damaging to the future of communities across this country, thousands of which lack banking services and financial services of any kind.

What we are talking about here is something simple. It is something very simple: a pilot program. We are not saying this is going to happen all over the United States. This gentleman wants to deny the ability of communities to have any kind of normal financial service where they have been redlined by the very letters that the gentleman just asked to be placed in the Record. Those very institutions abandoned the communities that we are seeking to serve.

I am really disappointed that the gentleman would want people to be subjected to usurious interest rates or to a lack of any kind of financial service, even paying your electric bill, for heaven's sake.

So, for two reasons, I ask my colleagues to vote against the gentleman's amendment: number one, it doesn't belong in this bill; and number two, it does a great disservice to the people of this country. They have a right to better service.

The Postal Service is coast to coast. It is audited, it is properly staffed, and it is universal. Whether you are poor or whether you are rich in this country, you have a right. You have a right to be treated fairly by the institutions that this Nation manages.

Mr. Chair, I want to congratulate those who work for our great Postal Service. I ask that the gentleman's amendment be defeated, and let us support what is in the Constitution of the United States, which is respect for the Postal Service, coast to coast to every citizen.

Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Chairman.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Chairman, you know, if they would operate these microphones for the Democrats as well as they operate them for the Republicans, maybe we could be heard on this floor, and especially for the women Democrats, I might add.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Ms. KAPTUR. Thank you.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source