Twisted government accounting behind Postal Service woes

[spanone]

You might have heard that the United States Postal Service is in trouble: that it's losing billions, that it will have to end Saturday service and close branches — and most inflammatory, that it might need a government bailout. Perhaps you heard that the Postal Service couldn't pay $5.5 billion bill that came due Sept. 30 and that only an emergency postponement saved it from the government's equivalent of default.

In fact, it's the Postal Service that’s currently bailing out the U.S. government. Politicians have been raiding Postal Service revenues for years, using them to make the federal deficit appear smaller than it really is. The fiscal gyrations are so twisted that the Postal Service is right now forced to pre-pay health care benefits for employees the agency hasn't even hired yet — in fact, for many future employees who haven't even been born yet — all to artificially shrink
the federal deficit.

It's these crushing accounting tricks, not the cost of delivering mail, that has pushed this 200-year-old institution to the brink.

Welcome to the wacky world of Washington, D.C., accounting.

http://redtape.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/10/07/8191425-twisted-government-accounting-behind-postal-service-woes

[Omaha Steve]

1. Yep

K&R!

[midnight]

2. Yes I did hear Bush used some creative accounting practices

to make is seem as if the Post office was not financially stable... I figure the Alec crowd does not know how to make a living the way that normal working people do... So they have to break the rules and play dirty tricks to get our tax dollars.

[eppur_se_muova]

3. Postal Workers Union has been running very effective ads on MSNBC ...

hope they're running elsewhere, too.

The ads explain the essence of the problem using minimal words and animation. Very succinct.