Jaffer responds to ‘war stamp tax’ story
Azeez Jaffer has responded to an article posted on the Online Journal blog that charged the Bush Administration with ‘raiding’ USPS funds to pay for Bush’s war against Iraq.
Jaffer points out the obvious inaccuracies in the blog article, but fails to mention that the most recent increase was, in fact, the direct result of Bush’s insistence on “revenue neutrality” in any postal reform bill. That has forced the USPS to raise rates in order to fund a $3 billion payment to the Treasury this year. The money is supposed to be held in trust, but regardless of whether the money goes to fund the war, the bottom line is that it reduces Bush’s budget deficit by $3 billion.
Jaffer concludes with this rather odd statement: ”Mr. Masden also implies that the war funding is possible because the Postal Rate Commission is full of Bush Administration appointees who have authority over postage rates. Wrong again. Although the Postal Rate Commission plays an important role in the development of postage rates, it’s the Governors of the Postal Service who have the final say.”
True as far as it goes, but aren’t the Governors also appointed by the President?
July 6th, 2006 17:59
Why is the USPS acting like anything less than the government piece it is? Bush says jump you should ask how high. Good lord if you want to have control then privatize. Otherwise the USPS has absolutely NO RIGHT to say anything its masters tell it to do.