Sen. Bernie Sanders on Sunday urged Congress to act immediately to stop President Donald Trump from using the novel coronavirus outbreak "as an opportunity to bankrupt and privatize the Postal Service," a longstanding goal of the conservative movement.

"Now, more than ever, we need a strong and vibrant postal system to deliver mail 6-days a week," tweeted Sanders, a senator from Vermont. "Congress must act now to save it."

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Analysts argue that the Postal Service's financial crisis was manufactured by Congress, which in 2006 passed legislation requiring USPS to prefund its retirees' health benefits through the year 2056.

As the New York Times reported last week, "the Postal Service has not taken federal funding in decades, running instead off revenue raised from stamps and other postal products. But since the 2008 financial crisis, it has struggled to stay in the black, weighed down largely by a congressional mandate to prefund its retirement benefits programs."

"The agency has stopped making those payments in recent years, running up billions of dollars in debt, while its mail delivery business has otherwise remained profitable," the Times noted. "Lawmakers in both parties have proposed overhauls to the service along the way, but none have taken hold."