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Yep, here's an explanation from the USPS themselves and a nice analogy to illustrate just how unfair the current attack on the USPS is: https://www.uspsoig.gov/blog/b...

They owe about $120 billion - for work already done, and hadn't set anything aside to pay it. Most "every other business in the country" funds your 401K or other retirement by sending their contribution to a third-party investment bank every time you get a paycheck. You work this month, they pay for it this month, including the retirement part.

So every other private (non-public) retirement/pension plan EXCEPT the USPS plan is fully-funded? I'd like to see proof of that!

The post office has the best-funded pension/retirement plan of ANY federal program:

The Postal Service has set-aside cash totals of more than $335 billion for its pensions and retiree healthcare, exceeding 83 percent of estimated future payouts. Its pension plans are nearly completely funded and its retiree healthcare liability is 50 percent funded â" much better than the rest of the federal government.

That's from the USPS Inspector General, 2015

It's been seriously suggested. It would provide them with a secondary income stream, increase the number of "banks" in poorer neighbourhoods (which often have a post office but no bank branches, precisely where people often need physical rather than electronic banking), and would thus replace a lot of pay-day-loan/cheque-cashing/pawnshops which do flock to poorer neighbourhoods and charge extortionate fees/interest, thus saving those communities tens of billions of dollars a year. There's about 60 million Americans who lack access to financial services who could benefit from a Postal Bank.

And, of course, the USPS was a savings bank until the '60s.

Here's a report from the USPS Inspector General. (pdf)

But the current Postmaster General is apparently a classic CEO, an MBA idiot who advocates branch closers, service cuts and fee hikes to "save" the post office. And Obama, of course, is terrified to take on the large banks.

USPS screwed up the specs for the machine-sortable mailers. They were *supposed* to be machine sortable, and if Netflix get those specs they were supposed to get the cheaper rate. It turned out that even meeting those specs they still needed hand sorting, but Netflix said that was a problem for the USPS. Since Netflix met the spec they argued that they should get the lower rate for that spec over the current valid term and should only have to revalidate mailers against a corrected spec at the end of that term. See in part the Audit report from USPS Inspector general: http://www.uspsoig.gov/sites/default/files/document-library-files/2013/MS-AR-08-001.pdf

First off, this fellow in a city council has no responsibility for the funding of the USPS.

Second, he has no ability to tax anyone outside his city - does he propose that Berkley alone fund the USPS?

Third, the issue with USPS solvency is, for the most part, inflicted upon the USPS by Congress, which has decided that since the USPS was profitable in 2006, that it should fully-fund 75 years of pension obligations by the end of 2016. This has resulted in over-funding the pension fund beyond any reasonable requirement by any conventional funding formula, and if you look closely, the losses the USPS reported these last few years is only slightly more than the annual over-payment of the pension system.

• HuffPo piece on USPS over-funding it's pension plan, as required by federal law
• CNBC piece on how USPS pension fund required to have funds to meet 75 years of benefits by 2016
• Inpector General Report the effects of the over-funding of USPS pension

The following paper demonstrates that the current system of funding the Postal Service’s Civil Service Retirement System pension responsibility is inequitable and has resulted in the Postal Service overpaying $75 billion to the pension fund.

The postal service is having money extracted from it each year, channeled to other parts of the federal government pension systems (mostly military). This is to help disguise how bad the federal budget is overdrawn. If the post office were allowed to fund their peoples' pensions the way every other government agency is, they'd be showing a profit.