Doesn't that argument apply to all the people wanting to abolish any government agency? eg: Why not make suggestions to make DEA/ICE/NSA/TSA/FDA/CDC/etc better? The same goes for those wanting to defund the police. The answer is clear to anyone whose bugbear I just mentioned. Some believe that some of these government programs can't be fixed. They're harmful on net, and the sooner they're eliminated, the better. I doubt many would agree on that when it comes to the postal service, but the core of the argument is sound.

Anyway, let's look at ways to make USPS more efficient. The pandemic has caused a 30% decrease in shipment volumes. If USPS wants to stay solvent they can furlough employees, lay off employees, and/or increase prices. Postal workers are unionized, so there's little chance of reducing employee expenses. That means they have to raise prices and/or ask for money from the government (which comes from taxes). Trump wants them to increase prices before he'll give them more money. This is because right now, Amazon (along with many other businesses) is shipping tons of packages via USPS. USPS loses money on each package they ship, so this is effectively a transfer from taxpayers to Amazon. Here's Trump quoted by Politico:[1]

> “The post office, if they raised the price of a package by approximately four times, it would be a whole new ballgame,” the president said during the signing ceremony for the latest coronavirus relief package. “But they don’t want to raise it because they don’t want to insult Amazon, and they don’t want to insult other companies, perhaps, that they like. The post office should raise the price of the packages to the companies. Not to the people, to the companies. If they did that, it would be a whole different story.”

Now let's look at the PDF. It mentions that Koch has funded a libertarian advocacy group called Americans for Prosperity. This group has come out against H.R. 6800, which authorizes $3 trillion of spending.[2] Of that, $25 billion goes to USPS.[3] That's less than 1% of the spending in that bill! Perhaps Americans for Prosperity aren't trying to kill the post office. Perhaps they simply don't want the government's budget to grow by another 15% of GDP, especially since much of that is likely directed towards special interests.

The bill also gives another $200 million to pay for salaries of workers in the federal prisons and it gives $187.5 billion to metropolitan areas (this money can't be spent outside of metro areas). Scanning through, I also see some stuff about discouraging the importation of drugs & medical equipment. It's a total mess.[4]

What I think is actually happening is that some people want to get another $3T of spending passed (mostly to enrich their constituents & ensure their re-election). To do this, they're using public support for the postal service (and public disdain for the Kochs) to try and sway voters. It's a sleazy tactic but it often works (as evidenced by how many upvotes this post has).

1. https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/24/trump-us-postal-ser...

2. https://americansforprosperity.org/afp-issues-key-vote-alert...

3. https://www.linns.com/news/us-stamps-postal-history/heroes-a...

4. The full text of the bill can be read at https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/6800...