The U. S. Postal Service (USPS) continues to bleed red ink. It reported a net loss of $5.6 billion for fiscal 2016, the 10th straight year its expenses have exceeded revenue. Meanwhile, it has more than $120 billion in unfunded liabilities, mostly for employee health and retirement costs. There are many reasons this formerly stable federal institution finds itself in the brink of bankruptcy. Fundamentally, the USPS is in a historic squeeze between technological change that has permanently decreased demand for its bread-and-butter product, first-class mail, and a regulatory structure that denies management the flexibility to adjust its operations to the new reality
美国邮政局（USPS）持续亏损。它报告2016财年净亏损56亿美元，连续第10年超出收入。同时，它有超过1200亿美元的无资金负债，主要是为了员工健康和退休成本。这个以前稳定的联邦机构发现自己处于破产边缘的原因有很多。从根本上说，美国邮政总局正在对技术变革进行历史性的挤压，技术变革永远减少对其面包和黄油产品，一流邮件的需求，以及一个管理层拒绝管理层灵活调整业务以适应新现实的管理结构
And interest groups ranging from postal unions to greeting-card makers exert self-interested pressure on the USPS’s ultimate overseer-Congress-insisting that whatever else happens to the Postal Service, aspects of the status quo they depend on get protected. This is why repeated attempts at reform legislation have failed in recent years, leaving the Postal Service unable to pay its bills except by deferring vital modernization.
和利益集团，从邮政工会问候卡厂商会对自利的压力USPS的最终监工，国会坚持，无论什么事情发生的邮政服务，它们依赖于得到保护现状的方面。这就是近年来反复尝试改革立法失败的原因，除了推迟至关重要的现代化以外，邮政部门不能付账。
Now comes word that everyone involved — Democrats, Republicans, the Postal Service, the unions and the system’s heaviest users — has finally agreed on a plan to fix the system. Legislation is moving through the House that would save USPS an estimated $28.6 billion over five years, which could help pay for new vehicles, among other survival measures. Most of the money would come from a penny-per-letter permanent rate increase and from shifting postal retirees into Medicare. The latter step would largely offset the financial burden of annually pre-funding retiree health care, thus addressing a long-standing complaint by the USPS and its union.
现在听说，所有涉及的人 —— —民主党人，共和党人，邮政局，工会和系统最重的用户 — 终于同意了修复这个系统的计划。立法正在通过议会，这将节省美国邮政五年估计为286亿美元，这可能有助于支付新车，除其他生存措施。大部分资金将来自每分钱一分钱的永久性费率上涨，以及将邮政退休人员转为医疗保险。后一步将在很大程度上抵消每年预先资助退休人员医疗保健的经济负担，从而解决USPS及其工会的长期投诉。
If it clears the House, this measure would still have to get through the Senate — where someone is bound to point out that it amounts to the bare, bare minimum necessary to keep the Postal Service afloat, not comprehensive reform. There’s no change to collective bargaining at the USPS, a major omission considering that personnel accounts for 80 percent of the agency’s costs. Also missing is any discussion of eliminating Saturday letter delivery. That common-sense change enjoys wide public support and would save the USPS $2 billion per year. But postal special-interest groups seem to have killed it, at least in the House. The emerging consensus around the bill is a sign that legislators are getting frightened about a politically embarrassing short-term collapse at the USPS. It is not, however, a sign that they’re getting serious about transforming the postal system for the 21st century.
如果这个议会通过了这个议会，这个措施还是要通过参议院 —— 那里有人必然会指出，这是保持邮政局的稳定，最低限度的必要条件，而不是全面的改革。美国邮政的集体谈判没有任何改变，这是一个重大的漏报，考虑到人员占该机构成本的80%。还缺少任何关于消除星期六信件交付的讨论。这种常识性的变化得到了广泛的公众支持，每年将节省USPS 20亿美元。但邮政特殊利益集团似乎至少在议会中杀死了这个集团。围绕法案形成的共识是一个迹象，立法者正在惊慌在美国邮政短暂的政治尴尬短期崩溃。然而，这不是一个迹象，表明他们对二十一世纪邮政体制的改革持严肃态度。
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