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Show In ouropinion - Pres. Carter, where's postal revamp ? Guest Editorial, courtesy of the Editor of the Box Elder Journal. "the Republican experiment in postal management." "Over the last five years the postal service has been a classic illustration of wasteful, imprudent and inefficient management. We must recognize that the postal service represents an essential public service for many people in our country. The ability to communicate com-municate through the mails must not only be sustained, but also improved. This I pledge to do," the president is said to have written. The two congressmen in their letter complained that the White House has not communicated on the developing legislation. "Unfortunately. ..it is clear that, perhaps mistakenly in an effort to achieve other goals, you have now abandoned your campaign promise to support meaningful It's a popular thing to use the federal government or the president as a whipping boy in these times of conflicting demands and expectations and elusive solutions to what ails the country. Sometimes the criticism is warranted. Sometimes not. On the question about what to do where the postal service is concerned, con-cerned, President Carter deserves a verbal rap. At the risk of sounding soun-ding redundant against a background of other such charges, we have concluded that he has taken one position verbally and another in terms of action. Now pending in the House is H. R. 7700 which would retrieve the postal service from its current independent status and restore it as a public service. The result would be to providing adequate public service funding, increase public accountability and restore public services to postal ratemaking. The measure has the votes to pass the House. That's not our conclusion but the observation from other knowledgeable sources. sour-ces. It was approved by the House Post Office and Civil Service committee by a 19-4 vote, a positive indication of the support H.R. 7700 enjoys. It has not come to the floor for a vote because President Carter intervened personally, requested House Speaker Tip O'Neill to postpone any action. While the speaker has made no commitment to the president, he has the request under consideration and at least temporarily has put H.R. 7700 on the shelf. 1 - . -Two members of the House Subcommittee Sub-committee on Postal Operations and Services, Chairman James M. Hanley and Rep. Charles H. Wilson, have urged the president in a letter to reconsider. In doing so they quoted some words written by Mr. Carter in October 1976 when he castigated postal reform legislation," they stated. This pictures the president as professing to want a change but unwilling to see to that change, leaving a situation which he deplored status quo. Admittedly, this newspaper and the thousands of other weeklies across the country have a special interest in the pending bill. If postal rates continue rising, so will newspaper rates since most weeklies depend upon the postal service for distribution. But so would it have a negative affect on all users of the mail. President Carter says the proposed legislation will be too expensive. Supporters admit it will be costly but disagree with Mr. Carter on the extent of that cost. Obviously the time has arrived to decide if the post office should cut back services and strive to be self-supporting, or nearly so, or concede that it is a public service and consent to subsidize it as such. Right now, however, we're hung up on the nail of indecision, and it's up to the president to get us off. |