US Postal Service loses $2B this spring

[Psephos]

12. To fund already-promised benefits.

Prior to the bipartisan, Democrat-cosponsored Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006, USPS operated under a pay-as-you-go model for retiree health care funding. The Act requires the Postal Service to pre-fund its benefit obligations using an NPV calculation.

Bernie Sanders was a co-sponsor. You really think he was shoving it to the Post Office? Or perhaps he understood that Ponzi schemes are catastrophes when they explode.

Original bill passed the House 410 to 20. Passed the Senate on a voice vote, with an amendment by Unanimous Consent.

Here's the text of the final bill.

https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/109/hr6407/text

USPS was granted considerable new regulatory flexibility regarding prices and services offered, and at the same time required to prepay retiree costs in accord with the GAAP model required of private business, instead of the tomorrow will never come model used by government.

One can argue whether the bill could have been better crafted. But the ideas that the USPS needed more price and service flexibility to respond to fast-changing technology, and also needed to make sure its promises to its retirees could be kept without a bailout, are tough to argue against.