"Based on a number of briefings and warnings this week about a critical fall-off in mail across the country, it has become clear that the Postal Service will not survive the summer without immediate help from Congress and the White House," the two said in a March 23 joint statement. The decline in using USPS, which operates as a semi-independent government agency that doesn't run on taxpayer funding, is exacerbating its woes. It is burdened by 2006 legislation that required the agency to pre-fund 75 years' worth of employee pensions in advance.