The Substantially Similar Weblog

There has been a lot of news about the two cent U.S. postage increase that goes into effect today, but little explanation of why the increase is required. Some reports mention that the increase is needed for a $3 billion “escrow fund,” but do not explain what the escrow fund is for. In case anyone is wondering, Congress required the Postal Service to create the escrow fund to prepay retiree health benefits and fund the military portion of retirement benefits for postal workers who had served in the military. (At least according to postalwatch.org. Who knew there was a postalwatch.org?).

I realize this is fairly off topic for my blog, but I was wondering about the explanation, so maybe one or two of my readers were as well.

If you’re looking for a more topical connection, perhaps we can blame the postal increase on the War in Iraq.

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