U.S. Congressman Sean Casten (IL-06) delivered remarks Thursday, Jan. 20 on the House floor on the ongoing postal delays impacting seniors, veterans, businesses and constituents in Illinois’ 6th District.
Casten said, “Since the start of this year, 50% of all the phone calls are about disruptions in the Postal Service. These are from seniors whose essential medications and Social Security checks were over two weeks delayed: Folks with missing credit card statements, missing Medicare cards, past due, undelivered bills accruing interest that they can’t pay because their paycheck hasn’t come, yet. Small business owners reliant on the mail who are completely unable to operate.”
Casten continued, “This is no way to run a business and it’s no way to treat the American people. The Postal Service needs leaders as committed to public service as the letter carriers and mail handlers who’ve doubled down, in spite of this assault from their leadership in, to deliver for Americans through rain, sleet and snow. It’s time for the Senate to act to confirm president Biden’s nominees and ensure Post Office as a fully-staffed and fully-functioning board.”
In October, Casten joined representatives Mike Quigley (IL-05) and Gerald E. Connolly, chairman of the Subcommittee on Government Operations for a press conference with members of the Illinois congressional delegation to address the dramatic reductions in U.S. Postal Service delivery performance in Chicago and across the country. Since last February, Casten has been a leader calling for oversight of what he calls Postmaster DeJoy’s “deliberate attempt to weaken and ultimately privatize the post office, to make people who depend on the postal service frustrated enough to finish the destruction he has initiated.”
— U.S. Congressman Sean Casten