Since the 1970s, he USPS operates on revenues earned from services provided, not through taxpayer subsidies.
The American national postal unions have never gone out on strike.
Yeah, right. Not according to the USPS' own financial information, as per its own annual report. In fact, the
Financial Highlights section from the 2010 report shows that the USPS ran a net operating loss of $8.374
billion dollars - even if the $5.5B pension funding payment was made, that still leaves an operating deficit of almost $3B.
More to the point, those self-same financial highlights show that we, the federal taxpayers, made a so-called "capital contribution" of $3.132
billion in 2010 alone. Keep in mind, that is a "contribution to capital," not a "payment for services rendered," so it wasn't paid for any services the USPS might have provided to the federal government.
Now, you can call that whatever you want to, but since the USPS hasn't earned a profit for years and years and years, it's a subsidy, plain and simple, for the simple reason that this so-called "contributed capital" will never, ever, ever be recovered.
So, sorry to burst your bubble, but the federal taxpayer subsidizes the USPS to the tune of a little more than $3B a year.