Postal Service and taxes
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President's budget proposed only $37 million for USPS --and not the $779 million as requested
posted February 10, 2004-
According to the Wall Street Journal, lawmakers are debating whether the U.S. postal system lacks the funds to install sufficient safeguards to cope with terrorist attacks. After the anthrax attacks of 2001, which killed five people, including two postal workers, the U.S. Postal Service hired contractors to install irradiation equipment designed to neutralize anthrax spores. But deployment has been limited to mail intended for government offices. Although the U.S. Postal Service has spent more than $500 million on biodefense since the anthrax attacks, it hasn't attached anthrax biosensors to the equipment. Nor has it begun to roll out a planned expansion of the irradiation system to cover mail delivered to most of the 128 million homes and 12 million businesses in the U.S.
The president's budget for the fiscal year that starts Oct. 1, unveiled on Tuesday, proposed only $37 million for the Postal Service, far short of the $779 million for biodefense requested by the agency. It has vowed to go directly to Congress to seek these funds, including $384 million in reimbursement for money already spent out of its own revenue. A spokesman for House Appropriations Committee Chairman Bill Young (R., Fla.), said that, as a rule, Congress tends to be "very reluctant" to provide direct appropriations to an agency that's "supposed to be self-sustaining." Ira Cohen, spokesman for Rep. Danny Davis (D., Ill.), said his boss favored more funding in the 2005 budget to upgrade biodefense in the postal system. "If you're going to give the Postal Service the added responsibilities of homeland-security issues, why should that be financed" out of Postal Service revenues, he said. Rep. Davis is a member of the Government Reform Committee, which has been considering a Postal Service revamp.
While the ricin scare renewed focus on the postal system, experts pointed out that while irradiating equipment could play a role in neutralizing anthrax, it wouldn't neutralize an inert poison such as ricin. Sensitive to any suggestion that the agency is dragging its feet, the Postal Service insists its terrorism-fighting efforts aren't falling behind. "We are right on schedule," said Thomas Day, vice president of engineering at the Postal Service. He also said the agency will try to find more money for biohazard-detection equipment even if Congress doesn't provide funds. "We are still committed to doing it, and it would have to come from our operating funds," he said. A protracted funding logjam could trigger the shutdown of some mail processing and distribution centers in order to reduce the overall cost of additional detection equipment. But any move toward widespread closings is likely to face fierce opposition from the unions that represent most of the Postal Service's 750,000 employees.
Postal officials also could shift a bigger chunk of security costs to anyone who mails a letter or package. The Postal Service is expected to start seeking approval in early 2005 for its next rate increase, which would take effect about a year later. Consumers and businesses already have been hit by three rate increases
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