No one else had to set aside money 75 years in advance, for a debt not due for 75 years. That's not legitimate accounting.

"Contrary to statements made by some employee groups and other stakeholders, PAEA did not require USPS to prefund 75 years of retiree health benefits over a 10-year period." https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-13-112.pdf

Also the 2022 Postal Service Reform Act eliminated the prefunding and ~$57 billion of overdue payments, but USPS finances were still dogshit afterwards: USPS revenue was $80 billion and expenses were $89 billion in FY2024

$9 billion was 0.073% of total federal spending in FY2024.

Small price to pay for something as extraordinary as the USPS.

I don’t think of their finances as being dogshit because there aren’t revenue positive. It’s a fraction of a sliver of the federal budget to run a constitutionally mandated service.

The (non-navy) military has no constitutional mandate at all, it’s an industrial scale cash incineration device which the postal service can’t hold a candle to, and we don’t blink at it wasting 10x or more of the postal service’s opex.

Would you allow other companies to deliver letters and to deliver stuff inside mailboxes? I find it disgusting that a company with a monopoly on those two services still can't make a profit.

Someone just bringing whatever shit they want to my house? Junkmail needs to be deregulated? Everytime I hear the "notions" of the libertarian/hypercapitalist ilk it just sounds like "What if your life could be even shittier than it is now?!?"

It can’t make profit because USPS is not allowed to set the prices of its services.

They also have to deliver to every valid residential address.

You wouldn’t see UPS or fedex running a mule train to make sure an area still gets mail[1]

If we let other companies take over and kill the USPS we’ll just see a ton of areas of the country not get delivered too because the profit margin isn’t there.

[1] https://facts.usps.com/8-mile-mule-train-delivery/

Public services don’t exist to make a profit.

The finances of your police and fire departments, your libraries and public schools, and the military, are all “dogshit” by this absurd reasoning.

Yes. Organizations must fund pensions up front and not rely on future revenue to make up for shortfalls.

It’s weird how people bring this up. It was very unusual for the usps not to have to set aside money now to pay for pensions in the future.

>Yes. Organizations must fund pensions up front and not rely on future revenue to make up for shortfalls.

What? Maybe my reading comprehension is a little off this morning but are you saying a company offering a pension plan must set aside hundreds of thousands of dollars day 1 every time they hire a new employee?.... That math doesn't math.

Day 1 employees are not entitled to hundreds of thousands in a pension. What do you mean?

75 years in advance? Does a 16 year old expect to retire at 92 ?