You're technically correct when thinking of only the transfer of money, though that's not the whole story. Many here would call tax breaks to regular businesses a tax subsidy to those businesses... after all, there are services those tax advantaged businesses are using that are being paid for by others. In this sense, there is a transfer of "something" from taxpayers to the business, it's just not hard "taxpayer dollars".

However, we see that the USPS does get a lot of advantages that are effectively subsidized by others:

http://fortune.com/2015/03/27/us-postal-service/

There are real subsidies that the USPS gets that are funded by taxpayers, it simply that those are not paid in cash. So I think the person you were responding to has a completely valid point. They are not competing and doing business on the same terms as other businesses and squandering their cash is enabled because of the subsidies of other expenses that they don't have to bear directly.

They also have to put up with all manner of political interference from Congress with regard to rates they can charge, what they can pay employees & what business plans they can implement.

The Post Office has been a political battleground for 40 years and it shows.

The “they are subsidized & squander their money” angle seems unfair given that. Personally I think they do a fairly good job.

That said I think it’s fair to say they are tax subsidized, it’s just not much of one.

Even worse then, the USPS is using the limited money they collect to subsidize this. https://www.forbes.com/sites/wadeshepard/2017/11/05/how-the-...

While I agree this seems fishy, there is probably a reason the USPS did this which we have not discovored yet.

It's an obligation to the United Nations. The original intent was to make it possible for poorer countries to send mail to wealthy countries. Basically, members agreed that they would offer a service to deliver mail within their own borders for free/cheap so that sending mail in poorer countries would be affordable. It makes sense if the volume of mail is relatively low and symmetric, but it wasn't really intended for the sort of volumes Chinese discount sellers are using nowadays.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Postal_Union

There have been reforms in the works to help cover the costs in the terminal country, but I'm not sure if they have been effective or not.

http://news.upu.int/no_cache/nd/member-countries-adopt-new-t...

Alibaba also has some sort of logistics deal in place with the USPS to cut costs, but I can't really seem to find much in the way of details.

http://postalnews.com/blog/2015/09/16/chinas-alibaba-and-usp...

Typical for "got ya" style responses there is a lot more details you should consider:

1. They have been bailed out numerous times. Yes, they paid their debt back but it was lent at a preferred rate by congress to an entity that no commercial lender to would do at those rates. (see Postal Service Reform Act (H.R. 5714))

2. The Post Office is except from all local state, city, and federal taxes. That also includes road tolls, vehicle registration, etc (wouldn't Fedex love that)

3. The Post Office has an open line of credit from Treasury under preferred rates and terms that no regular business would get.

4.Finally, they hold a monopoly status on delivery of first-class mail. This monopoly status, and the legal issues surrounding "whats considered legal notification" is tantamount to an indirect tax.

They are also required, by law, to come to any address in the US, pick up a single letter, and get it to any other arbitrary address in the US for $0.49. Good luck getting FedEx or UPS to do it for 49 cents.

> for 49 cents

I’ve seen forever stamps marketed for years, but it’s been a long time since the price of a letter went up. So, if the price went up to 51 cents, your forever stamps would still work, but, honest question, what are the realistic chances of that happening?

Between 2006 and 2017 the first class letter rate has gone up eight times and down once. [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_United_States_posta...

Low population density areas aren't guaranteed service.