Every Wonder Why the Govt Wants To Charge For Email

Think the Federal Government does not want to try and not only tax Internet usage but emails as well? Looks like the price of stamps is going up again to 39 cents.

Postmaster General John E. Potter told a gathering of national mailers in Nashville last week that the Postal Service had asked its board of governors for permission to seek a rate increase of 5 to 6 percent.

…would be needed in 2006 to cover the $3.1 billion annual cost of a special escrow fund that Congress required the Postal Service to establish when lawmakers restructured the agency’s payments to its employee pension funds in 2003.

If you ever wonder why the Post Office seems so mismanaged and price increases so common just look at how Congress has organized it.

“Failure to repeal the [escrow] provision will directly impact the Postal Service’s rate planning and will trigger annual rate increases, over and above any rate increases needed to fund postal operations,” Collins and Sen. Thomas R. Carper (D-Del.), a co-sponsor of the bill, said in a statement.

The Bush administration has been reluctant to go along with such a repeal because it would add to the federal budget deficit.

What is most worrisome is when the US Postal Department starts making comments like the following:

Last reorganized in 1970, the Postal Service recently has been plagued by stagnant revenue, rising costs and declining mail volume. Especially worrisome to postal officials is the accelerating decline in first-class mail, a lucrative line of business that has traditionally covered two-thirds of the Postal Service’s costs, as Americans increasingly turn to the Internet to pay bills and communicate.

No, that would be especially worrisome to the American public.