> Most of the quasi-confusion can be traced back to the 1971 Postal Reorganization Act, which eliminated the old Post Office Department, replacing it with the US Postal Service. The act was intended to make the USPS self-financing from its own revenues, and to make it an independent, non-political public service. Prior to the PRA, postmasters (including the postmaster general) were political appointees; rates were set by Congress, and the POD had to go through the appropriations process to get the money it needed to operate.

USPS is a special case of government services which is neither a traditional agency nor a government-owned corporation. Its got a weirdly specific charter that was carved out to protect private shipping companies- for example they cannot buy their own planes. They simultaneously have to deliver mail to all US addresses with uniform pricing 6 days/week AND be operate without tax dollars. I use the term loss here because that is what they use, for example in their annual report: https://about.usps.com/what/financials/annual-reports/fy2019...

https://postalnews.com/blog/2015/05/09/postal-myths-2-the-us...