The agency assured customers this week that the default would not affect mail delivery or employee paychecks. Benefits for current retirees are funded. There is no legal penalty for missing the payment: It originally was due last year, but Congress moved the deadline.
But as Congress prepares to head home for its August recess, the Postal Service's latest financial hurdle is another sign that there seems to be no easy path to fixing its problems.
The Senate passed a bipartisan bill in April that would relax the health-fund payments and give relief from another debt - $11 billion in pension payments that congressional watchdogs say were unnecessary. But a more aggressive House plan approved by a Republican-led committee last year has not come to the floor. Some observers say legislation may not pass before the 112th Congress adjourns at year's end.
"All of us in the postal community were hopeful that once the Senate bill passed, you could move the legislation through the House," said Ruth Goldway, chairman of the Postal Regulatory Commission, which reviews and makes recommendations on postal proposals. "The Postal Service is facing a mailing community that's concerned about the future of this network they really depend on."
Congress's failure to find a fix after more than two years of debate is partly election-year politics. But the logjam is compounded by home-state and ideological concerns, observers say. Every district has hundreds of post offices and mail-sorting hubs and constituents who depend on them for mail and jobs. Rural lawmakers have more to lose from service cuts the Postal Service says it needs, since their constituents often depend on the mail more than those in urban areas.
And while union-friendly Democrats hesitate to require the agency to squeeze its labor contracts too tightly, many conservative Republicans oppose what they see as a taxpayer bailout.
"Congress must reject calls for a taxpayer-funded bailout and instead focus on the need to enact comprehensive reform that mandates cuts to operating expenses in order to restore long-term solvency," Rep. Dennis Ross (R., Fla.), one of the House bill sponsors, said in a statement.
The House bill would allow the agency to access the pension overpayment, as well as to close thousands of facilities, renegotiate labor contracts, eliminate Saturday service and establish a financial control board to overhaul the system's finances.
