Nine Ways the Postal Service Is Not Like a Real Business

Despite all the talk about the United States Postal Service (USPS) being a business, regular people understand it has the soul of a government agency and in fact is not allowed to act in a businesslike manner. Real businesses underfund their pensions. The Postal Service overfunded its pension plan (to the benefit of the federal government, not postal employees).

When a too-big-to-fail business gets into financial trouble, the federal government often props it up with interest-free loans in the name of economic stimulus. When the Postal Service ran into financial trouble, Congress insisted that it continue lending interest-free money to the