You can thank George W. Bush for that fuckup.Flake wrote:Because the USPS, despite being an independent corporation, falls under the auspices of the government enough that it is required (ludicrously) to fully fund its pension plan decades in advance.
This pension plan scheme has remained in place as it is an easy place (like social security) for congress to borrow funds from for projects it wishes to fund today.
As result, the USPS is financially crippled and is unable to hire enough employees, modernize its equipment, or move mail quickly.
http://www.phillytrib.com/newsarticles/ ... rrest.html
"But a mandate contained in the Postal Service Accountability and Enhancement Act — a 2006 reform bill that was signed by President George W. Bush — created a highly unusual burden on the agency that within a single year helped turn it from an operation that pulled in $1.4 billion in profits in 2005 to one that now bleeds cash like a sieve.
Embedded in the law is a requirement that the Postal Service put 80 percent of its retiree health benefits for the next 75 years into a newly created Postal Service Retiree Health Benefits Fund. The payments are to be made at a highly accelerated rate that amounts to a total cost to the USPS of more than $5 billion each year through 2016. According to Fredric Rolando, president of the National Association of Letter Carriers, the Postal Service is essentially being asked to pay the future health benefits of employees that don’t even work for it yet."
