Politics: Why the U.S. Postal Service’s massive deficit is really sort of an illusion
- illusion The U.S. postal service has had to pre-pay large amounts of their health care costs for a number of years — roughly $5.5 billion this year, which they nearly defaulted on and only survived thanks to U.S. government help.
- reality In reality, they’re pre-paying health benefits over the next 75 years — a point which likely includes many employees yet to be hired or born — as a way to make the federal deficit look a little less depressing. Wait a second … source