Postal sources say senior postal management has agreed that the U.S. Postal Service must seek an increase in the price of the first-class stamp and that Postmaster General Marvin Runyon has endorsed the idea.
Until recently, Runyon has sought to hold the price of a stamp at 32 cents until the year 2000. But, facing a projected $1.3 billion deficit in 1998, and after a briefing by top postal managers last week, the postmaster general changed his view.
Many postal officials now expect that the agency will initiate proceedings to raise the price of a first-class letter to 34 cents.
The increase would not become effective until mid-1998.
Even with a 34-cent stamp, Runyon will be able to claim a victory of sorts. Soon after arriving at postal headquarters in 1992, Runyon blocked the agency from proposing a 35-cent stamp - a rate that some postal executives wanted to impose in 1995.
Instead, Runyon has effectively changed what historically has been a three-year rate increase cycle. Under that cycle, the Postal Service would make a profit the first year of higher stamp prices, break even the second and then post a deficit in the third year.
Preventing Hubbell from cooperating with Whitewater prosecutors "was not the intention of anyone that I'm aware of," she told an interviewer.