The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) continues to bleed red ink. It reported a net loss of $5.6 billion for fiscal 2016, the 10th straight year its expenses have exceeded revenue. Meanwhile, it has more than $120 billion in unfunded liabilities, mostly for employee health and retirement costs. There are many bankruptcies. Fundamentally, the USPS is in a historic squeeze between technological change that has permanently decreased demand for its bread-and-butter product, first-class mail, and a regulatory structure that denies management the flexibility to adjust its operations to the new reality.

    And interest groups ranging from postal unions to greeting-card makers exert self-interested pressure on the USPS’s ultimate overseer—Congress—insisting that whatever else happens to the Postal Service, aspects of the status quo they depend on get protected. This is why repeated attempts at reform legislation have failed in recent years, leaving the Postal Service unable to pay its bills except by deferring vital modernization.

    Now comes word that everyone involved—Democrats, Republicans, the Postal Service, the unions and the system’s heaviest users—has finally agreed on a plan to fix the system. Legislation is moving through the House that would save USPS an estimated $28.6 billion over five years, which could help pay for new vehicles, among other survival measures. Most of the money would come from a penny-per-letter permanent rate increase and from shifting postal retirees into Medicare. The latter step would largely offset the financial burden of annually pre-funding retiree health care, thus addressing a long-standing complaint by the USPS and its unions.

    If it clears the House, this measure would still have to get through the Senate—where someone is bound to point out that it amounts to the bare, bare minimum necessary to keep the Postal Service afloat, not comprehensive reform. There’s no change to collective bargaining at the USPS, a major omission considering that personnel accounts for 80 percent of the agency’s costs. Also missing is any discussion of eliminating Saturday letter delivery. That common-sense change enjoys wide public support and would save the USPS $2 billion per year. But postal special-interest groups seem to have killed it, at least in the House. The emerging consensus around the bill is a sign that legislators are getting frightened about a politically embarrassing short-term collapse at the USPS. It is not, however, a sign that they’re getting serious about transforming the postal system for the 21st century.

答案精析：此道题目需要根据全文作答。本文第一段提出美国邮政管理局（USPS）面临持续亏损的状况。第二段中解释了美国邮政管理局未能进行现代化改革的原因。第三段介绍了美国邮政管理局的改革方案。最后一段指出改革方案并不全面，如美国邮政管理局劳资双方集体谈判的问题没有一点改变、法案遗漏了取消星期六信件投递的讨论等。从长远来看，这是一个治标不治本的方案。此篇文章以“提出问题——提供解决方案——阐述不足之处”的结构进行论述，并暗示解决问题的办法，由此D选项符合题意。

错项排除：全文没有提到美国邮政管理局怀念过去的黄金时期，它也不是本篇文章的重点，A错。原文有提及美国邮政管理局确实涉及诸多利益集团，但它是美国邮政管理局未能实现现代化改革的原因，也不是此篇文章的主旨。美国邮政管理局有财政问题、改革问题，但文章中并没有提到这些问题需要马上得到解决，而是应进行全面的改革（comprehensive reform），C错。