USPS does more or less teeter on the edge of solvent and sustainable depending on how you measure and when you measure. All things considered, I think that's pretty damn good. Pretty much no other government service can claim that. I think the retiree funding requirement is/was dumb and an unnecessary handicap but the way USPS runs itself should be a model for other government services. The only reason we don't look at USPS as a massive success is because the idiot left brains want it to be run like a charity and the idiot right brains want it gone entirely.
> Pretty much no other government service can claim that.
Sure there are, they just don't get the air time and political attention. Examples I'm familiar with: The minerals, oil, and gas regulatory agencies bring in billions of dollars. A single lease sale in the gulf would make BOEM as an agency incredibly profitable but instead the money just goes up to the federal government and is redistributed. National Parks already collect entry fees and the NPS could easily raise those prices to meet or exceed agency expenses, public demand would almost certainly pay it, and they could also teeter like the USPS. Social Security, if it were never fucked with, would have more money from just interest than most country's GDPs but we've robbed that piggy bank numerous times already.
