Everyone talks about funding "for 75 years" like they have to have $100k per person per year for the upcoming 75 year, like it's a stack of cash the recipient will be paid from.

It is my understand 75 years is the horizon beyond which no current worker's liability will cost anything. And the difference between 74 and 75 years funding is tiny compared to the difference between 1 and 2 years.

Everyone saying it's not fair because these "defined benefits" plans aren't required of the rest of the government seem to come down on the side that this is a good thing. It's really just an obligation for future taxes to make payments in lieu of current revenue to fund plans equal to the liabilities incurred today.

Saying something like this handicaps the USPS really means they should be able to freely obligate the taxpayer to future payments based on what they do today.

Funding liabilities as they are incurred is the proper thing to do, regardless of whether it is the USPS or some other aspect of the government. Pay as you go is insanity. Defining outcomes through legislation doesn't make it so.

Whether this is to handicap the USPS or not is entirely orthogonal to the issue of actually paying for the promises being made, rather than promising that someone in the future will pay for it.