How right he is. Also think about DoD decisions and how politics warps them

Why the Post Office will never make money (and a lesson for health insurance)
By: David Freddoso

Consider this letter, sent Friday by Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa. to the Postmaster General.
Dear Postmaster General Potter: I am writing to express my deep concern regarding the recent announcement that the United States Postal Service (USPS) is considering closing 37 post offices in Pennsylvania. I am well aware of the financial challenges that the USPS faces, and I am committed to working with the Postal Service to overcome these challenges while preserving jobs and the services on which thousands of Pennsylvanians depend....
Casey's letter could be viewed as either a kind offer of help or a threat. Either way, it represents a non-market pressure on the business dealings of the USPS. Could Federal Express or UPS survive, let alone make a profit, if they had politicians breathing down their necks regarding essential business decisions? Could any private business survive in a competitive marketplace under these circumstances? The likely answer is no.
This applies in the case of nearly every quasi-governmental venture. Politicians from both parties, beginning with President Clinton and including President Bush, prodded Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to expand the pool of mortgages whose risk they would assume to include the credit-unworthy. We have since reaped the disastrous results of this business decision made for political reasons.
The lesson: hybrid government-business ventures have political aims which inevitably come to cross-purposes with their business goals.
Along the same lines, consider the much-debated government-run "public option" health insurance plan. Assume, generously, that it will not gouge and ultimately destroy its private competition through predatory pricing. How many lawmakers will pen letters like Casey's, in hopes of micromanaging this government-run insurance company's insurance activities? Can anyone take seriously the Obama administration's claim that a government-run insurance company will not begin receiving taxpayer subsidies, the moment its clients begin demanding additional services from their congressmen?