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Show Much Waste In Government Postal System Found By Hoover Commission In this day and age, the penny postal card looks like a great bargain. Actually it costs the government two-and-one-half cents to print and deliver a postal card. As things work out, this is costly to you, the citizen. Eighty-five per cent of all penny postal cards are used by business firms. The Post Office loses $44 millions a year on its postal card business. And your taxes pay your share of the loss. The Hoover Commission found, in fact, that the Post Office will lose about $500 millions this year. Among the reasons are : (1) Obsolete Ob-solete methods and equipment (2) cumbersome regulations and over-centralization over-centralization (3) an organizational organization-al structure that has not been basically changed since 1835 (4) "hidden", subsidies to airlines and other carriers (5) politics in postal pos-tal appointments. Hard-working postal employees find it hard to do their jobs under such conditions. The Commission found that 80 per cent of all mail-handling mail-handling operations could be improved im-proved with modern equipment. The average age of postal trucks is above 15 years. Their maintenance mainten-ance is 20 per cent more costly than that of new trucks. The hum-i hum-i blest country postmaster must re-port re-port direct to Washington through $ The recommendations of the Hoover Commission, if fully effected, ef-fected, would do more than reduce re-duce postal losses. The Hoover Report covers 24 major areas of government. The recommendations already enacted will mean ultimate savings of $1,250,000,000. Additional Addi-tional saving of at least $3,000,-000,000 $3,000,-000,000 can be realized if Congress acts on the remaining recommendations. recommen-dations. To you, the average citizen, this could mean elimination of the wasted was-ted one dollar in ten in federal expenditures ex-penditures today. And federal taxes now total about $1,000 a year for the average American family. What can you do to help? Support Sup-port President Truman and Congress Con-gress in their program to reorganize reor-ganize the Post Office and other departments of government for efficiency and economy. Join in the educational program of the Citizens Committee for the Hoover Report and work for "better government gov-ernment at a better price." a maze of over 900 closely-pnnted pages of complicated regulations and rulings. Hope of advancement is stifled by politics. At last $200 millions of the annual an-nual Post Office loss could be eliminated by modern methods, equipment, and rate-making procedures, pro-cedures, the Commission found. The $500 million loss of the Post Office this year is equal to the entire cost of the United States government in one year of the McKinley administration. |