It may not be as historic as the events happening in Cairo today, but this piece by the AP’s Randolph E.Schmid is probably the first to accurately describe yesterday’s USPS financial report:
The post office continues to lose money at a rapid pace thanks to a requirement that it make advance payments to cover expected health care costs for future retirees.
The agency said Wednesday it had a loss of $329 million for the first quarter of the fiscal year – Oct. 1 to Dec. 31, 2010.
That was up from a $297 million loss in the same period the year before, which ended with a total loss of $8.5 billion.
Without the requirement for advance health care payments, the post office would have had a net profit of $226 million for the quarter, the agency announced.
Congress has proposed easing the upfront payments, which are not required of any other government agency.
Now really- how hard was that?