The House of Representatives took up postal reform legislation this week, a decade after Congress passed the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act, which was supposed to shore up the U.S. Postal Service for the 21st century. It didn’t work out that way. Shortly after President George W. Bush signed the law, the economy tanked, as did mail volume.

The Great Recession is long gone, but the amount of mail sent by Americans has not recovered. The number of letters, catalogs and the like fell from 213 billion pieces per year in 2007 to 154 billion last year. The digital-media revolution has meant fewer magazines are mailed and more bills are paid online….(Read more at The Hill)