If you take a wider view, this problem is easier to understand. The republican party is the political department of corporations. We have public schools that do a great job for a reasonable cost, but corporations don't profit. So Republicans gave us the charter school movement wherein corporations can bill the taxpayers at a higher rate, provide inferior services, and pocket the difference as profit. We had government prisons that pay family wages and cost a reasonable amount. But corporations don't profit. So Republicans privatized things like immigration detention centers and Bill the treasury at a higher rate, pay poverty wages, and corporations can keep the difference. The postal service is a crown jewel for corporate film flam artists. If you were FedEx, wouldnt you love to acquire it? You could raise prices, cut services, and rob the treasury and the people of hundreds and hundreds of billions. But nobody would stand for this because the USPS has always been a fantastic organization. So, Republicans passed a special law that applies to nobody else. The law is an accounting trick to fool voters into thinking the postal service isn't wonderful so they will let the republicans privatize it. Normally today's retirees are paid pensions by today's workers. Future retirees will be paid by future workers. That's how it is in both business and government. If course you have to have some cash reserve in case the workforce gets smaller, and all agencies do, but a small reserve is enough. The Republican rule is that the USPS has to have cash in the bank to pay pensions for future workers that aren't even born yet. It's totally absurd. But the wingnuts that don't understand accounting and get their information from Facebook, the same people that believe Republicans when Republicans say there is no global warming, will think that the USPS is a disaster because it's hundreds of billions in the red, right? When enough of them get angry that the USPS is losing money (the USPS isn't losing money. Remember it's just a trick), they will allow the republicans to rescue them by privatizing mail delivery. You'll pay more, get less, and wall street bankers will get hundreds of billions of dollars for yachts and private jets. The workers are secure under the old system. The new system is like saying if you don't pay your unborn grandchild's lifetime of rent now, you are insolvent and you should be forced into bankruptcy and have your possessions auctioned off. The old system was you paying your rent, and your grandchildren paying their own rent with the money they earn by working, and you having a decent amount of money saved so you can help in case your grandchildren have a job that pays less than you.