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Show ' CONGRESSMAN DAWSON REPORTS i Bv Rep. William A. Dawson J "POSTAL RATES Election year or not, I sincerely hope ' Congress faces up to the task of ! getting our post offices out of the red. I am convinced we have none as far as we can in this direction di-rection without increasing postal ; rates. We now require other gov-: gov-: eminent agencies to reimburse i the Post Office Department for the cost of handling government I franked envelopes. We have cut l other expenses to the bone. But I wo still are going in debt at he rate of $400 million per year handling mail. ! ON THE LINE Postmaster General Arthur Summerfield I laid the entire problem on the ! Lne before the House Post Office and Civil Service Committee. Pointing out that since World War II postal operations have added $4.6 billion to the national debt, he said, ' This means that each family in the United States owes more than $100 for mail long since read and disposed of. Deferred payment for homes, cars and refrigerators has a proper pro-per place in our economy, but we should not mortgage the future fu-ture of the American citizen for the price of postage." LONG OVERDUE Under the rate increase proposal, first class letter rates would be raised from 3c to 4c. This would be the first increase since 1932 the days ol the nickel telephone call and the 10-cent loaf of bread. Since the 3c letter rate was adopted, per capita disposable income has increased in-creased 300. In addition, heavy increases would be made on magazine and other postal class rates. Mr. Summerfield pointed out that the magazine prices have increased from 5c to 15c per issue since 1932, yet postal rates on them have remained virtually unchanged. WHO PAYS Would a postal increase penalize the individual American? Mr. Summerfield says not. On the contrary, under present pres-ent rates the individual is paying pay-ing part of the cost of delivering business mail. If letter rates art-advanced, art-advanced, 75;0 of jjjp additional revenues will come from business busi-ness users. Under the present rates the postal deficit is borne, for the most part, by those who Dav federal income taxes. Over pay federal income taxes. Over 60 of these taxes are paid by individuals. In effect, individual Americans now are bearing postal post-al costs that should be charged to business houses. DEPOT SAVINGS As a result re-sult of investigations into waste at Deseret Chemical Depot requested re-quested by Sen. Wallace F. Bennett Ben-nett and myself, annual savings of mere than $1 million have been made. In addition, more than $6 million in planned, but unnecessary, construction was cancelled. This amount of money would finance Utah's share of federal aid for school construction construc-tion for nearly four years. |