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Actually, they are. They perform a public good while not consuming public dollars. Oh, you didn't know that they self funded?

https://about.usps.com/who-we-are/postal-facts/top-10-things...

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Not quite. Read my other comment above in this thread. When you have the US Government locked in as a customer, and that customer continues to rely on you for the majority of their communication instead of moving to electronic communications, you are relying on taxpayer dollars to pay for those stamps that fund your operations.

Given that it would cost the US government more if they used UPS or FedEx to do their shipping, I don't see why that's a problem.

Given that electronic mail is an order of magnitude cheaper and more efficient, it would drive the US Government to adopt it much more widely than it is used today. Your assumption that UPS or FedEx prices would remain fixed if they were to compete for additional business from the US Government isn't necessarily true either.

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