Can This Life Ring Save the Postal Service?

A House committee has thrown the US Postal Service a lifeline, but it won't be substantial enough to allow the agency to fully escape the financial quicksand pulling it under. The Oversight and Government Reform Committee advanced legislation Friday that would allow the USPS to pay for the health benefits of current retirees out of its Retiree Health Benefit Fund instead of from its operating budget. That would save about $2 billion a year. That figure sounds good until you realize that the Postal Service -- which is funded by customers, not tax dollars -- lost that amount in just the second quarter and expects to lose $6 billion this fiscal year. Changing the funding source of retiree benefits will help, but it won't stop the recession from sucking revenue from the agency.