[Bob]

The postal deficit is due to Congress requiring the USPS to prefund employee health benefits for the next 75 years.

When did that start? Recently?

See Figure 1 at: USPS Report from 2000

According to that chart, the USPS has been running deficits of a few billion dollars in most of the years going back to 1972.

[Colonel Kangaroo]

2006. Get rid of the requirement and a lot of the USPS’s problems go away, at least to the point where it is not an immediate crisis.

[Bob]

Here's that chart I referenced in my earlier post:

[muawiyah]

To minimize the frequency of postage rate changes they'll run a deficit for a few years then raise rates and then pay off those deficits and collect more than is needed to run for a few years.

It's a cycle ~ once you get to the period where they bought an incredible amount of automation equipment the deficits were supposed to run for maybe 10 years, then disappear ~

Alas, the Great Obama Recession came along and business collapsed, and with it printed advertising.

Jus' the way it is.

USPS can cut several billion dollars in costs but Congress as prohibited them from doing so.