Postage: A Costlier Christmas?

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The U.S. Postal Service will soon be offering some priceless stamps. Literally. In June it began producing its latest line of Christmas stamps in the midst of a continuing rate war with its overseer, the Postal Rate Commission. The Postal Service is dissatisfied with the current 29 cents price of a first-class stamp, which the Rate Commission approved in January in defiance of a long-standing request for a 30 cents stamp. The extra penny would bring in $850 million a year for the Postal Service, which is as hard hit by the recession as any business. The Postal Service has one last chance to push the price up a penny, but it could hardly afford to be the Christmas stamp Grinch. So the two seasonal stamps -- one bearing a madonna, the other a secular winter motif -- will simply read 1991 and sell for whatever price is in effect by then.