For over a decade, I’ve been writing about how both political partiessaddled the U.S. Postal Service with a massive retirement financing burden. Essentially, USPS had to generate 75 years worth of retirement funds over a ten year period, and when it was (obviously) unable to do so, it was accused of ‘losing billions of dollars every year.’ Very bipartisan!

Well, it seems that even privatization ghoul and ambulatory ethics scandal Postmaster General DeJoy–and of course, the Congress!–realize this needs to be fixed (boldface mine):

The House on Tuesday advanced a major financial overhaul of the ailing U.S. Postal Service, relieving it of tens of billions of dollars in liabilities that agency leaders said prevented it from modernizing and providing efficient service.

The bill, which passed 342 to 92, marks a major breakthrough for the mail agency and Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, who made the legislation the centerpiece of his 10-year postal restructuring plan.

The Postal Service has implored Congress to help fix its balance sheet for nearly 15 years, and agency leaders are cautiously optimistic about prospects for the Postal Service Reform Act in the Senate. It has 27 co-sponsors in the upper chamber, including 14 Republicans, sufficient support to defeat a potential filibuster.

Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said the chamber would vote on the legislation by the end of next week, citing its bipartisan popularity.

What is absurd is that privatization advocates, and their congressional allies, have been for years using this ‘fundamental inefficency’ as an excuse to justify privatization of USPS, but with One Neat Congressional Trick, this policy justification just… disappears.

I leave it as an exercise for the reader whether or not this might apply to other policy areas.