Being a government agency, it may in fact be prohibited from making money.
"Not supposed to make money" isn't the same thing as "spend $140,000 on making your logos look hipper".
"Not supposed to make money" isn't the same thing as "spend $140,000 on making your logos look hipper".
The 10-month investigation by the GSA's inspector general
found that 52 percent of 18F's work was unbillable and
included an internal project to change its logo by altering
its font, alignment and background color. In all, 727 staff
hours, or $140,104, were spent on developing the brand,
including that logo change.
Perhaps someone from 18F can speak to whether developing the U.S. Web Design Standards [1] is part of this category because if so, I would argue that spending $140k (which is roughly 1-2 software engineer annual salaries) on such a project is certainly worthwhile since this spec is part of the foundation for many future projects.
Based on the IG's comments it looks like the expectation is that 18F should be billing project hours.
The United States Postal Service (USPS), (also known as the Post Office, U.S. Mail, or Postal Service), is an independent agency of the United States government responsible for providing postal service in the United States. It is one of the few government agencies explicitly authorized by the United States Constitution.