MacArthur calls for investigation into military care package rate hikes
Shipping military care packages to our men and women overseas just got more pricey, and Shore Congressman Tom MacArthur (NJ-3rd District) wants to know why.
MacArthur submitted two letters of his own.
One to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, asking them to investigate the USPS who doubled the rate hikes on the military mail.
The other letter goes straight to the postmaster general demanding the USPS reverse the postal rate hikes.
"To double the rates just isn't right," MacArthur told WOBM News. "I know the post office is under some financial stress...this isn't the way to fix it."
MacArthur says he's not looking for free shipping after a meeting at Joint-Base-McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst last year deemed it unsafe, but says the rates should've been left untouched.
"I was trying to get them to ship these packages for free," MacArthur said. "We worked at it for quite a few months but in the end it was too cumbersome from a security perspective to pack these boxes and wrap them...then the Joint-Base is shipping boxes where they don't really know what's inside of them."
MacArthur says the doubling of the rates really hurts non-profits who ship these packages.
"They (non-profits) want to serve our troops and they can't do it to the same degree if their postage costs are doubled," MacArthur said. "The packages are filled completely with volunteers, there's no cost there. The goods are almost completely donated by supermarkets and other vendors. The real cost is the shipping cost."
His letter to the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform calls for an investigation into why the decision was made.
"The reason I called for that is really out of an abundance of caution in case they don't respond favorably right away, I want them to know it's not going away and that we're going to shine the light of day on the decision and the effect of it," MacArthur said. "I don't want to call it a threat...but the fact that they know I'm not going to let this go I'm hoping will cause them to really think twice about what they're doing."
MacArthur's letter to the USPS Postmaster General Megan Brennan and Robert Taub, Chairman of the Postal Regulatory Commission asks them to put things back to where they were, and no is not an answer.
"I'll see how they respond," MacArthur said. "My hope is that they'll just realize that this is not what they want to be doing and they'll reverse it. If they don't, I'm going to have to think of other ways to apply pressure and get this reversed."
MacArthur says he hopes this was simply just an oversight by the postal service and is cautiously optimistic a solution can be worked out at some point.
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