If that is true, then American consumers subsidize Chinese shipping via higher costs of domestic shipping rather than through higher taxes.

Perhaps. However, that's not the same as taxes and its not a hidden cost like a tax. It's not factored into the price of US goods as US companies would use a private shipper if the this law significantly effected shipping costs.

At worst it hurts USPS revenue and increases the cost of first class mail as market forces can't compete for first class mail. My point is a lot of the comments are misleading about the scope of the costs involved here.

Almost entirely... except for the $100 million in tax dollars per year they receive to subsidize blind and overseas citizens. They also get $18 billion per year in tax benefits. NOT self-funded, never will be.

https://www.politifact.com/georgia/statements/2013/jul/24/am... http://fortune.com/2015/03/27/us-postal-service/

I'm sorry, but $100M subsidy for the blind is a drop in the bucket for a nation of 300 million -- and I call BS on the rest of the `benefits`.

Let's break down your sources.

The first one simply observes that the USPS holds a debt to the US government. OK. I owe money to Citibank - does it mean that Citibank funded my degree? No.

The second source lists three factors it considers to be `benefits`:

- Tax breaks and Cheap borrowing. Color me surprised that a government-owned entity isn't expected to pay back to the government. It's a subsidy in the same way that every pirated MP3 is a `loss`: the assumption here is that every buck made by USPS could be potentially made by a private company, which would pay taxes on that. This is a claim that I would rate as wild imagination without very strong evidence, given that any system to fill USPS's shoes would have to perform the duty of delivering mail to (nearly) every resident.

- Laws that bar any other shipping service from delivering mail and packages directly to residential and business mailboxes. Well, USPS can't deliver directly into the Amazon's fulfillment center cells either. That aside, again, it's highly unclear how you can translate that to cost to the taxpayers - even if it means profits for USPS.

That is because not every taxpayer is paying anything to USPS.

Official monopolies are a tricky thing - but nobody is screaming about how utilities and telecommunication companies, which enjoy these monopolies, are not self-funded.

They say that a rose by any other name is still a rose. By the same measure, a cactus, even though prickly, isn't one -- even if you call it a rose and write a long article about it.

If you call losing ~$1B+/qtr self funded, yeah they’re “self funded”

https://about.usps.com/who-we-are/financials/financial-condi...

That's not really their fault.

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-04-04/congress-...

> The law requires the Postal Service, which receives no taxpayer subsidies, to prefund its retirees' health benefits up to the year 2056. This is a $5 billion per year cost; it is a requirement that no other entity, private or public, has to make. If that doesn't meet the definition of insanity, I don't know what does. Without this obligation, the Post Office actually turns a profit. Some have called this a "manufactured crisis."

alternatively, it means that all those other institutions are actually loss making when one factors in their pension obligations

It is subsidized through a number of different ways, but nationwide postage also shouldn't be a profit center, given how much other economic activity it fosters.

i can tell you we're not self funded...thats such a ridiculous argument i hear all the time...ITS SO NOT TRUE HAHA i can do nothing but laugh when isee this crap. I've been here over 10 years lol nothing is self funded about this place

If I remember correctly USPS has some crazy requirement which demands the organization fund retirement plans for many decades out. I think without that requirement they might show a profit every year.