Reader David Franklin was spot on with his commentary regarding the fabricated "debt" of the United States Postal Service. There is little doubt that President Bush and his lame duck Congress passed the PAEA with the sole intent of eventually splintering the USPS, with benefactors such as the scoundrel Koch brothers and their cromies waiting in the wings looking to seize and privatize the profitable, direct mailing end of it. They would then discard what they deemed unnecessary, much like Gordon Gecko in the movie "Wall Street."  Few people know the facts that Mr. Franklin articulated in his letter, even fewer still realize the true chicanery and the 7 year shell game Congress has played with the USPS and the unsuspecting public:
In 2006, when Congress started requiring USPS to lend the US Treasury $5.5 billion per year to be repaid by the Treasury up to 75 years in the future in the form of retiree health benefit premiums, USPS had $0 debt. Its current $15 billion debt was caused by the requirement to lend that $5.5 billion to the Treasury every year. Before 2006, USPS, in accordance with private sector best practice paid the normal cost (yearly cost) of its retiree health benefit costs out of current revenues. USPS is now the only entity, public, military, or private, that is required by law to prefund that liability.
 The taxpaying public would do well to learn the difference between liability and debt and how that difference can be used by a money-addicted Congress to find money to squander on its wasteful programs. USPS has the future liability for its retiree’s health benefits so Congress forces it to borrow the money now to prefund the liability. Now USPS’ liability is converted into debt. USPS lends the money to the Treasury and it is reported in the Unified Federal Budget (the federal equivalent to a General Fund) as “revenue.” Congress pretends that this revenue has no strings attached because the offsetting debt is hidden in the OFF BUDGET USPS’ financial reports and they squander the money on unrelated programs. So how do the health benefits get paid? Future taxpayers have to cash the Treasury bonds held by USPS to pay, that’s how. This is just another debt monetization scheme by Congress where they sell debt, pretend that the money is “revenue” so it can be spent freely, and stick future taxpayers with paying it back. It’s the same scheme they pulled with Social Security. If those payments had anything – anything at all – to do with building up a fund to pay those future expenses the funds would be invested in marketable securities rather than immediately spent elsewhere. To date, no one has offered any reason whatsoever why this draconian mandate has yet to be repealed. The sad truth is that it won't be any time soon. Why would Congress kill off its cash cow? Who would fund its irresponsible pork barrel spending if they did?
Steve Punzo
President, National Postal Mailhandlers Union Branch 14
Wallingford