Postal Supervisors and Managers Fairness Act of 2025
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Rep. Connolly, Gerald E. [D-VA-11]
ID: C001078
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5. Conference: If both chambers pass different versions, a conference committee reconciles the differences.
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Bill Summary
Another exercise in legislative theater, courtesy of the esteemed members of Congress. Let's dissect this farce and reveal the underlying disease.
**Main Purpose & Objectives:** The Postal Supervisors and Managers Fairness Act of 2025 is a masterclass in Orwellian doublespeak. Its primary objective is to create the illusion of fairness while perpetuating the same old bureaucratic inefficiencies that have been plaguing the United States Postal Service (USPS) for decades.
**Key Provisions & Changes to Existing Law:** The bill proposes to modify procedures for negotiating pay and benefits for supervisory and managerial personnel within the USPS. It introduces a 60-day window for the USPS to provide written proposals to the supervisors' organization, which is supposed to facilitate more efficient negotiations. Oh, please. This is nothing but a cosmetic change, designed to create the appearance of progress while maintaining the status quo.
The real kicker is the modification of dispute resolution procedures, which now allows a panel to issue binding determinations on pay policies and schedules within 15 days. Because what could possibly go wrong with giving unelected bureaucrats more power to dictate terms?
**Affected Parties & Stakeholders:** The main beneficiaries of this bill are the postal supervisors and managers who will see their pay and benefits potentially increased. But let's not be naive – this is merely a payoff to a select group of unionized employees, rather than any genuine attempt at reform.
The USPS itself will likely suffer from increased costs and bureaucratic red tape, further exacerbating its already precarious financial situation. And as for the taxpayers? They'll foot the bill, as always, without receiving any tangible benefits in return.
**Potential Impact & Implications:** This bill is a prime example of legislative myopia, focusing on symptoms rather than the underlying disease. The USPS's problems run far deeper than pay and benefits; they stem from a toxic mix of inefficiency, corruption, and congressional meddling.
By perpetuating this cycle of bureaucratic bloat, Congress is effectively ensuring that the USPS will continue to hemorrhage money and struggle to provide basic services. Meanwhile, the politicians will pat themselves on the back for "supporting" the postal service, all while ignoring the elephant in the room: their own incompetence.
In conclusion, HR 1560 is a textbook case of legislative malpractice – a shallow attempt to address symptoms rather than the underlying disease. It's a bill that promises fairness but delivers nothing but more of the same old bureaucratic nonsense. Bravo, Congress. You've managed to make a mockery of the legislative process once again.
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đź’° Campaign Finance Network
Rep. Connolly, Gerald E. [D-VA-11]
Congress 119 • 2024 Election Cycle
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Project 2025 Policy Matches
This bill shows semantic similarity to the following sections of the Project 2025 policy document. Higher similarity scores indicate stronger thematic connections.
Introduction
— 70 — Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise Title 5 of the U.S. Code charges the OPM with executing, administering, and enforcing the rules, regulations, and laws governing the civil service.2 It grants the OPM direct responsibility for activities like retirement, pay, health, training, federal unionization, suitability, and classification functions not specifically granted to other agencies by statute. The agency’s Director is charged with aiding the President, as the President may request, in preparing such civil service rules as the President pre- scribes and otherwise advising the President on actions that may be taken to promote an efficient civil service and a systematic application of the merit system principles, including recommending policies relating to the selection, promotion, transfer, per- formance, pay, conditions of service, tenure, and separation of employees. The MSPB is the lead adjudicator for hearing and resolving cases and contro- versies for 2.2 million federal employees.3 It is required to conduct fair and neutral case adjudications, regulatory reviews, and actions and studies to improve the workforce. Its court-like adjudications investigate and hear appeals from agency actions such as furloughs, suspensions, demotions, and terminations and are appealable to the U.S. Court of Appeals. The FLRA hears appeals of agency personnel cases involving federal labor griev- ance procedures to provide judicial review with binding decisions appealable to appeals courts.4 It interprets the rights and duties of agencies and employee labor organizations—on management rights, OPM interpretations, recognition of labor organizations, and unfair labor practices—under the general principle of bargain- ing in good faith and compelling need. The OSC serves as the investigator, mediator, publisher, and prosecutor before the MSPB with respect to agency and employees regarding prohibited person- nel practices, Hatch Act5 politicization, Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act6 issues, and whistleblower complaints.7 The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has general respon- sibility for reviewing charges of employee discrimination against all civil rights breaches. However, it also administers a government employee section that investi- gates and adjudicates federal employee complaints concerning equal employment violations as with the private sector.8 This makes the agency an additional de facto factor in government personnel management. While not a personnel agency per se, the General Services Administration (GSA) is charged with general supervision of contracting.9 Today, there are many more contractors in government than there are civil service employees. The GSA must therefore be a part of any personnel management discussion. ANALYSIS AND RECOMMENDATIONS OPM: Managing the Federal Bureaucracy. At the very pinnacle of the modern progressive program to make government competent stands the ideal of professionalized, career civil service. Since the turn of the 20th century, — 71 — Central Personnel Agencies: Managing the Bureaucracy progressives have sought a system that could effectively select, train, reward, and guard from partisan influence the neutral scientific experts they believe are required to staff the national government and run the administrative state. Their U.S. system was initiated by the Pendleton Act of 188310 and institutionalized by the 1930s New Deal to set principles and practices that were meant to ensure that expert merit rather than partisan favors or personal favoritism ruled within the federal bureaucracy. Yet, as public frustration with the civil service has grown, generating calls to “drain the swamp,” it has become clear that their project has had serious unintended consequences. The civil service was devised to replace the amateurism and presumed corrup- tion of the old spoils system, wherein government jobs rewarded loyal partisans who might or might not have professional backgrounds. Although the system appeared to be sufficient for the nation’s first century, progressive intellectuals and activists demanded a more professionalized, scientific, and politically neutral Administration. Progressives designed a merit system to promote expertise and shield bureaucrats from partisan political pressure, but it soon began to insulate civil servants from accountability. The modern merit system increasingly made it almost impossible to fire all but the most incompetent civil servants. Complying with arcane rules regarding recruiting, rating, hiring, and firing simply replaced the goal of cultivating competence and expertise. In the 1970s, Georgia Democratic Governor Jimmy Carter, then a political unknown, ran for President supporting New Deal programs and their Great Soci- ety expansion but opposing the way they were being administered. The policies were not actually reducing poverty, increasing prosperity, or improving the envi- ronment, he argued, and to make them work required fundamental bureaucratic reform. He correctly charged that almost all government employees were rated as “successful,” all received the same pay regardless of performance, and even the worst were impossible to fire—and he won the presidency. President Carter fulfilled his campaign promise by hiring Syracuse University Dean Alan Campbell, who served first as Chairman of the U.S. Civil Service Com- mission and then as Director of the OPM and helped him devise and pass the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 (CSRA)11 to reset the basic structure of today’s bureau- cracy. A new performance appraisal system was devised with a five rather than three distribution of rating categories and individual goals more related to agency missions and more related to employee promotion for all. Pay and benefits were based directly on improved performance appraisals (including sizable bonuses) for mid-level managers and senior executives. But time ran out on President Carter before the act could be fully executed, so it was left to President Ronald Reagan and his new OPM and agency leadership to implement. Overall, the new law seemed to work for a few years under Reagan, but the Carter– Reagan reforms were dissipated within a decade. Today, employee evaluation is back
Introduction
— 70 — Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise Title 5 of the U.S. Code charges the OPM with executing, administering, and enforcing the rules, regulations, and laws governing the civil service.2 It grants the OPM direct responsibility for activities like retirement, pay, health, training, federal unionization, suitability, and classification functions not specifically granted to other agencies by statute. The agency’s Director is charged with aiding the President, as the President may request, in preparing such civil service rules as the President pre- scribes and otherwise advising the President on actions that may be taken to promote an efficient civil service and a systematic application of the merit system principles, including recommending policies relating to the selection, promotion, transfer, per- formance, pay, conditions of service, tenure, and separation of employees. The MSPB is the lead adjudicator for hearing and resolving cases and contro- versies for 2.2 million federal employees.3 It is required to conduct fair and neutral case adjudications, regulatory reviews, and actions and studies to improve the workforce. Its court-like adjudications investigate and hear appeals from agency actions such as furloughs, suspensions, demotions, and terminations and are appealable to the U.S. Court of Appeals. The FLRA hears appeals of agency personnel cases involving federal labor griev- ance procedures to provide judicial review with binding decisions appealable to appeals courts.4 It interprets the rights and duties of agencies and employee labor organizations—on management rights, OPM interpretations, recognition of labor organizations, and unfair labor practices—under the general principle of bargain- ing in good faith and compelling need. The OSC serves as the investigator, mediator, publisher, and prosecutor before the MSPB with respect to agency and employees regarding prohibited person- nel practices, Hatch Act5 politicization, Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act6 issues, and whistleblower complaints.7 The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has general respon- sibility for reviewing charges of employee discrimination against all civil rights breaches. However, it also administers a government employee section that investi- gates and adjudicates federal employee complaints concerning equal employment violations as with the private sector.8 This makes the agency an additional de facto factor in government personnel management. While not a personnel agency per se, the General Services Administration (GSA) is charged with general supervision of contracting.9 Today, there are many more contractors in government than there are civil service employees. The GSA must therefore be a part of any personnel management discussion. ANALYSIS AND RECOMMENDATIONS OPM: Managing the Federal Bureaucracy. At the very pinnacle of the modern progressive program to make government competent stands the ideal of professionalized, career civil service. Since the turn of the 20th century,
Introduction
— 700 — Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise Deputy Commissioner should be replaced. A thorough review of IT contracts should be conducted. The Integrated Modernization Business Plan41 should be systematically reviewed and a version of it cost-effectively implemented. An over- sight board composed of private sector IT experts should be established and given the authority to conduct meaningful, contemporaneous oversight. TAXPAYER RIGHTS AND PRIVACY Legal protections for taxpayer rights and privacy have improved during the past three decades, but they remain inadequate.42 Congress should do more. For exam- ple, interest on overpayments should be the same as interest on underpayments rather than the government receiving a higher rate, the time limit for taxpayers to sue for damages for improper collection actions should be extended, the juris- diction of the Tax Court should be expanded, and the tax penalty system should be reformed by rationalizing the penalty structure and reducing some of the most punitive penalties.43 The Office of the Taxpayer Advocate was created by Congress to assist taxpay- ers when the IRS bureaucracy is unresponsive or negligent. About 1.7 percent of the IRS budget goes to this function.44 Each year, the Office handles more than 250,000 cases, helping taxpayers to deal with the IRS. Each year, it issues nearly 2000 taxpayer assistance orders, a form of administrative injunction, forcing the rest of the IRS to stop taking unwarranted actions.45 Congress should provide the Office of the Taxpayer Advocate with greater resources so that it may better assist taxpayers suffering from wrongful IRS actions. The office should also be strengthened by, among other things: l Ensuring that the National Taxpayer Advocate can make his or her own personnel decisions to protect its independence; l Ensuring NTA access to files, meetings, and other information needed to assist taxpayers or investigate IRS administrative practices; l Requiring the IRS to address the NTA’s comments in final rules and including the NTA in deliberations prior to the release of a proposed rule; and l Authorizing the NTA to file amicus briefs independently. Administrative Burden. In 2021, Americans filed 261 million tax returns and an astounding 4.7 billion information returns (such as Form W-2s, Form 1098s and Form 1099s).46 Complying with tax law costs Americans more than $400 bil- lion annually, or about 2 percent of gross domestic product.47 Although the IRS — 701 — Department of the Treasury administers these reporting programs, most of this expense is mandated by Con- gress, not the IRS. One of the primary reasons that Congress mandates ever-increasing infor- mation reporting is that the Treasury Department and the Joint Committee on Taxation staff almost always overestimate how much revenue will be gained from still more burdensome information reporting, and they do not estimate or report private compliance costs. Congress and the Treasury Department must undertake a serious review of the information reporting regime and reduce the burden on the public—especially small businesses. Small businesses suffer disproportionately from complexity and administrative burdens. Costs do not increase linearly with size, so elevated administrative costs have an adverse effect on the competitiveness of small firms. Budget. The operating budget of the IRS should be held constant in real terms. The resources allocated to the Office of the Taxpayer Advocate should be increased by at least 20 percent (about $44 million). The Office of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion should be closed. Provided that IT management is changed; an effective, well-considered implementation plan is adopted; and serious oversight is put in place, additional resources dedicated solely to IT modernization may be warranted. INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS The Treasury Department should withdraw from Senate consideration the Protocol Amending the Convention on Mutual Administrative Assistance in Tax Matters.48 The protocol will lead to substantially more transnational identity theft, crime, industrial espionage, financial fraud, and suppression of political oppo- nents and religious or ethnic minorities by authoritarian and corrupt governments, including China, Colombia, Nigeria, and Russia. Unlike the original multilateral convention, the amended convention is open to all governments—including many that are either hostile to the United States, have serious corruption problems, or have inadequate privacy protections. The new Administration should also oppose the multilateral Competent Authority Agreement on Automatic Exchange of Financial Account Information.49 International organizations such as the OECD, the World Bank, and the Inter- national Monetary Fund espouse economic theories and policies that are inimical to American free market and limited government principles. The global elites who operate the IMF regularly advance higher taxes and big centralized government. The IMF has intervened in American policy debates—and has even recommended that the U.S. raise taxes. The IMF’s record of advancing global financial stability has been mixed at best. Its development assistance and lending programs in third- world countries have more often than not retarded growth rather than advancing it. The Treasury Department plays an important role in these international institutions and should force reforms and new policies. The U.S., however, should
Showing 3 of 5 policy matches
About These Correlations
Policy matches are calculated using semantic similarity between bill summaries and Project 2025 policy text. A score of 60% or higher indicates meaningful thematic overlap. This does not imply direct causation or intent, but highlights areas where legislation aligns with Project 2025 policy objectives.