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Comment by Zanni | Hacker News Reader

I'm reading the first link and I see language like "83 percent," "50 percent funded," and "unfunded by $86.6 billion." Are you interpreting treis' comment as "hasn't made any of the payments?" Because I read it as, "hasn't made all of the payments," which seems accurate.

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The USPS has missed most of they payments, not making a full one since 2010. The health benefits fund (the 50% one) was the only one that needed to be funded and much of that funding came from transfers from the other, overfunded, pension accounts.

Anyway, the point is moot, since the prefunding period is over and the payments are now on the permanent schedule. Because the Post Office couldn’t fully find the account, the fund is now running deficits and will be depleted in a decade.

"Hasn't made any of the payments" is the only way to read it when they're saying "it's hypothetical". Once the first payment is made, it's not hypothetical any more. It's real money. The USPS only stopped paying because they were more than $8b in debt and could no longer afford the $5.7b per year they needed to pay. Which goes to prove the point that Congress is intentionally taxing them out of business.

If I owe you money and I stop paying and my argument for stopping paying you is that I don't have any money left, do you claim that my money problems are hypothetical because I haven't paid it all? No. They're very real, highlighted by the fact that I can't pay the rest.

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