I was confused by this until I realized you are missing some logical steps in your (accurate) argument.
The 2006 law took away the safety net (ie the ability to charge whatever is needed to break even).
The “you can now make a profit” rule actually made it HARDER since it came with a price cap.
It told the USPS: You can keep any profits you make, but you cannot raise prices above the rate of inflation to get them.
This forced the USPS to absorb rising costs through internal efficiency rather than passing the bill to mailers
By no means was I implying that the ability to profit means they did profit. Im just stating what the law was.
No because they are still deep in the red, about $9B a year.
US Military costs ~$1T/year and the Pentagon hasn’t passed an audit in the last eight years, comparatively, but not a lot of similar complaints of that waste versus pensions for workers operating and serving a national public service agency.
https://www.militarytimes.com/news/pentagon-congress/2025/12...
Electrifying the USPS light vehicle fleet is expected to generate up to $4.3B in lifetime savings over the fleet lifecycle, similarly.
https://huffman.house.gov/media-center/in-the-news/electrify...
https://atlaspolicy.com/federal-fleet-electrification-assess...
USPS and the US military are both, at their heart, logistics engines and systems, and both should be valued as such. "The whole is more than the sum of its parts." If you do not maintain and treat said systems with respect, the capability will not be ready when you need it, or will not contribute to the ongoing success of the jurisdiction in which it operates. The only difference between the two is that the US military happens to fight wars with what its logistics operation it provides itself.
The unsung role of logistics in the US military - https://news.mit.edu/2025/unsung-role-logistics-us-military-... - November 25, 2025
True, but isn't this because everyone knows that USPS is a dying business already?
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.
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
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.
(I have all my mail sent to a CMRA and basically never see any of this stuff, though.)
Not when combined with the idea that spam mail senders should be legislated out of legality.
People receive tons of mail, it's just packages. The USPS handles packages, but we've allowed it to be replaced by labor-unfriendly private organizations like UPS and Amazon.
> is an recent idea
> This isn't really accurate. USPS had a break even (not profitability) legal mandate since 1970-2006.
No, the idea that USPS should break even is a recent idea. 1970 is recent.