The Republican Congress passed the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act , a bill that set the USPS’s pricing scheme for the next decade. Included almost as a footnote in this legislation was an ambitious requirement: The USPS would prepay decades of employee health-care benefits over only 10 years, at a rate of about $5 billion a year. The Post Office ponied up for the first few years, but then the Depression hit and mail volume from large companies dropped off. The annual $5 billion obligation became too much, and the USPS stopped paying.

The result has been what Steve Hutkins, an NYU professor who runs the blog Save the Post Office, called a “manufactured crisis” that has fueled conservative arguments that the USPS should be privatized. The Nation by Jake Bittle

Show Notes:
A decade of facts and figures US Post Office https://about.usps.com/who-we-are/postal-facts/decade-of-facts-and-figures.htm
Save the Post Office http://savethepostoffice.com/
Trump wants Postal Service to charge 'much more' for Amazon shipments https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-amazon-com/trump-wants-postal-service-to-charge-much-more-for-amazon-shipments-idUSKBN1EN15O