Politicking Leads to Profitable October for USPS

USPS released preliminary financial results late yesterday showing net income of $61 million last month, the first month of Fiscal Year 2013, versus a budgeted loss of $244 million and last year's loss of $139 million.

If not for a $467 million charge for prefunded retiree health benefits, the agency's net would have been $528 million—a profit margin of more than eight percent on revenues of $6.03 million.

Those prepayments have been likened to an interest-free loan to the federal treasury that are designed to obscure the true size of the federal budget deficit.