If Senator Daines cared about rural Montana he would have been working to keep our USPS financially solvent, thereby protecting the existence of Montana’s rural post offices. Instead, he offered the lame double speak advice that “they (the postal service) should pursue a priority-based budgeting approach.” (Billings Gazette, 2/7/2013) While he was in the Republican-led House it failed to take up the bipartisan Senate bill to make the USPS solvent. Later, while in the Senate, Daines again did nothing help make the USPS solvent.

The USPS was debt-free in 2005. Its losses are traced to an artificial restriction forced onto it by the lame-duck Republican-led Congress in 2006. That is when it passed the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act. That legislation forced the USPS to pre-fund future health care benefits by putting aside billions of dollars to pay forward 75 years of benefits for employees it hasn’t even hired.

Knowing the problems of our postal service, this year, Daines introduced a Senate bill to lift the unfair USPS “pre-funding” financial burden. His ‘action’ is nothing but politics. He knew it would go nowhere in this election year, especially as Donald Trump is hell bent on destroying the USPS. Daines waited seven (7) years to do nothing. Daines needs to go. We need to elect Governor Bullock to the Senate. Bullock understands and actually cares about postal service in rural Montana. He will work with Senator Tester to revive the bipartisan USPS Senate bill to save our postal service.