Word: postally
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Another proposal, put forth in a bill by Texas Democratic Representative Eligio de la Garza, is to kill the Postal Service and bring back the old Post Office under total Government control. The trouble with this idea is that it invites a return of the abuses and inefficiencies of the Post Office, which was inflexibly bureaucratic and ridden with politics. The virtue of a Government corporation is that it can make appointments on the basis of merit alone, transfer funds as it thinks best without bureaucratic controls, and plan ahead and borrow money for modernization...
Considering the alternatives, the quasi-independent Postal Service should be retained, but it must be changed-and quickly...
...solution lies with Congress. First, it should declare unmistakably that the Postal Service is in fact a service and not a business that should be expected to break even. It will always have to receive Government money if it is to do the job the public needs and wants. A bill now in Congress to provide the Postal Service with a subsidy of up to 20% of its operating expenses is a sensible recognition of this fact. Says New York Democratic Representative James Hanley, who is head of the House Postal Service Subcommittee and the sponsor of the bill: "There...
...Postal rates are so enmeshed with the public service role that they should be responsive to the will of elected representatives and not left simply to an administrative law judge and a commission appointed by the President without customary Senate approval...
Beyond that, while respecting the Postal Service's independence, Congress must oversee its functions much more closely. In washing its hands of postal matters in 1971, Congress abdicated a responsibility for postal affairs that was set out for it in the Constitution. The lawmakers might well refer to the words of George Washington, who spoke of the Post Office as the indispensable chain binding Americans together...