| Show POSTAL DEFICIT AND SUBSIDIES in his next report to congress conz ress postmaster general brown as i expected to call for 21 2 cent letter postage as a means of ening the deficit A worse example of hind bind side afore reasoning could not be found in a months search the post office department is making a handsome profit out of letter mail at the present rate its losses come entirely from other sources and particularly from subsidies andl paid to steamships airplanes and to newspapers the shipping interests have tried for years to get a direct subsidy out of congress failing there they have wi angled subsidies out of the post office government owned merchant ships are sold to private companies at a Ir fraction action of their value with small cash payments and the rest in annual installments running fifteen years or moie then the company which buys the ships gets a contract for carrying the mails drawn in such extravagant terms that the mail contract pays the installments as they fall due to put it still more bluntly the post office is buying these ships from the government and presenting them to the new private owners 11 what hat wonder there is a postal deficit almost as bad are the contracts for air mail which subsidize airplane lines and never forget that the post office handles fourth class mail which means newspapers and periodicals at a rate so low that it loses millions of dollars a year on the job wipe out these subsidies and the postal deficit would vanish overnight exchange |
