Jon Stewart, pointing out to House minority leader John Boehner that perhaps the United States Postal Service is a bad example of government mismanagement, on The Daily Show (via inothernews) (via radarchive)

Also, USPS is completely self-sustaining. That is to say, they receive ZERO tax dollars to keep running.

(via robot-heart-politics)

This is not exactly full disclosure. First, the post office is losing money hand over fist right now. Second, while they take in zero tax revenue for operations, taxes can still be used to fund any of the capital investments of the post office (though it doesn’t appear as if this is common … though eminent domain is frequently used for the post office when new communities are created). Third, the post office pays no taxes, giving it a rather healthy operating margin compared to other businesses. Finally, the post office only has had this structure since 1970, and its growth prior to that was paid for by taxpayers.

Technically, I would call even the operating cost part a lie, as the post office receives around $100 million per year by Congress to cover free postage for the blind and stuff like that. Postal Inspection is also considered outside of the operating costs (and is paid for by taxpayers).

Having said all that, I think the US post office is probably the best run quasi-government agency in existence (here or elsewhere).