evidence: Passed by a Republican-led Congress and signed into law by President George W. Bush, the PAEA gave the Postal Service new accounting and funding rules for its retiree pension and health benefits. Up until 2006, the USPS funded those obligations on a pay-as-you-go-basis, pulling out of its pension fund and adding to it as retirees' costs came in. But the PAEA required the Postal Service to calculate all of its likely pension costs over the next 75 years, and then sock away enough money between 2007 and 2016 to cover most of them. [...] Eventually, the burden became too great, and the USPS began defaulting on the PAEA payments in 2012. But the damage was done. The Postal Service lost $62.4 billion between 2007 and 2016, and its own Inspector General attributed $54.8 billion of that to prefunding retiree benefits. Without the PAEA, the Postal Service wouldn't be doing stellar. (Though you could plausibly blame many of its remaining struggles on the Great Recession.) But it probably would've spent at least part of the last decade making comfortable profits. [...] In fact, it gets worse. The PAEA also required the Postal Service to invest its retiree funds exclusively in government bonds. Once again, this is a rather unusual practice. While it mitigates risk, it's also a great way to earn really low returns. Then the USPS has to set aside even more money to achieve the same benefit level. Baker calculated that just getting rid of this requirement could make the Postal Service profitable again.