U.S. Postal Service: Another Looming Crisis

• Donahoe must also fend off the perception that the Postal Service is over-bloated with excess costs, capacity and dead weight. That says nothing about the public perception that the mail is an archaic vehicle for the transmission of information.

• And most galling to those who sympathize with the USPS is the requirement to prefund retiree health benefits (RHB) to the tune of $5.5 billion per year, which they feel is as unfair as it is unprecedented, for no other entity, public or private, carries this burden. USPS also pays $2.2 billion per year for current retiree health benefits. The prefunding was borne out of the 2006 Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act (PAEA), which was intended to provide a modern business plan.