The Postal Service Would Have Broken Even Without Accounting Charges

The NYT reported that the Postal Service lost $2.0 billion in the third quarter of its 2014 fiscal year. While the piece did note that much of this loss was attributable to a requirement imposed by Congress that the system prefund its retiree health benefits, it would have been useful to also point out that a change in the accounting of liabilities in its workers' compensation fund added $0.6 billion to its losses this quarter. By contrast, in the third quarter of last year the accounting for...