Exactly. Nobody expects the welfare office to be self sufficient, what are they gonna do, charge all the recipients?
But a mail and parcel service, something that the private sector does profitably, shouldn't be deeply in the red though a little from time to time is probably fine.
On the other hand though, if the private parcel service had to fund 40 years of pensions instead of giving out 401k's, and were obligated to serve unprofitable routes, they'd be deeply in the red. It's not a remotely level playing field, so it's no wonder the government parcel service is having problems.
Various acts of Congress that force them to take on a huge amount of debt and force them to run unprofitable routes. A private company has no such requirements.
I looked up the cost to FedEx an envelope to somewhere in the US. Looks like $10 is about standard (unless you want to go too far or too rural). The USPS will send an envelope anywhere for $0.74. 10/0.74 = 13.5x
The USPS has a monopoly on traditional delivery to a mailbox. So FedEx walks all the way to the door which makes it not "traditional delivery"
But a mail and parcel service, something that the private sector does profitably, shouldn't be deeply in the red though a little from time to time is probably fine.