You might be tempted to think that an increasingly antiquated government entity that posted a $16 billion deficit in 2012 alone, that has defaulted on its $11.1 billion retiree health benefit prefunding payments, and has maxed out its $15 billion lifeline with Treasury — and that has readily available private-sector alternatives champing at the bit to more efficiently and profitably take up their market share — would accept that they are acting as a net drain on taxpayers and the economy and go gently into that good night of obsoleteness, or even just pragmatically innovate and/or drastically scale back their operations.

Not these guys. Via the WFB:

GERRY CONNOLLY: In the 2006 legislation, what is so monstrous about this, Ed, and you got it is they created this crisis in that lame duck legislation of the Republican Congress in 2006, and now they say, well, there is a crisis we created, and there is no choice but all these horrible decisions that will further kill a viable and vibrant postal service.

“Viable and vibrant”? What the what?

Yes, cutting down on the USPS’ operations may mean real, material pain for a few people in the short term — and the related unions and their Democratic allies certainly don’t like that. The Postal Service’s continual subsidization, however, comes at the cost of a sounder federal budget and a more robust economy that would make us all better off — the type of economy that can boast more productive, private-sector jobs that mean the government doesn’t need to keep wasting our money to boost up its politically favored industries.

This is so perfectly, painfully demonstrative of the United States’ current conundrum: Every single one of our many government outlays has its respective interest group(s), who will fight tooth and nail to make sure that particular bit of our oversized federal budget doesn’t get eliminated. Everybody wants to cut spending, just not their spending — and any GOPer that dares to point out the obvious fiscal realities will be relentlessly demonized. The end.