Copyright 1999 The Omaha World-Herald Company
Omaha
World-Herald
June 25, 1999, Friday SUNRISE EDITION
SECTION: ;EDITORIAL; Pg. 22
LENGTH: 494 words
HEADLINE:
Two Bad Ideas in the Mail
BYLINE: 2
BODY:
Congress is considering loosening the ties on
the U.S. Postal Service, allowing it to set its own rates more easily while at
the same time permitting it to expand into areas already served by the private
sector. Both are poor ideas.
In the House, HR 22 would tamper with the
Postal Rate Commission, which would be renamed the Postal Regulatory Commission.
The commission was established to oversee the Postal Service's requests for rate
increases, to be sure that they were necessary and fair to all classes of
mailers. The Postal Service would be able to raise the cost of its services more
easily if the measure should pass.
More ominously, the proposal would
allow the Postal Service to set up a separate Private Law Corporation in order
to buy private businesses. The quasi-governmental agency already has a monopoly
on the delivery of first-class mail and some types of advertising mail.
Americans do not need a Postal Service that can do what amounts to buying into
virtually any business it wishes, with the federal government behind it.
The Postal Service already markets products or services that compete
with private companies. Expanding that base would be an improper crossing of the
line between government and the private sector.
The Postal Service's
monopoly means that it should have a special responsibility, beyond that of a
private company that faces competition, to play fair with mailers. Instead, in
recent years the agency has created large budget surpluses by offering special
rates to large-volume mailers while sticking it to smaller mailers through
higher rates.
Statistics provided by John T. Estes, a spokesman for
individuals, groups and businesses that use the mails, indicate that small
mailers pay 85 percent of the overhead costs of the Postal Service, though they
account for just 53 percent of the mail volume. That imbalance could worsen if
the measure passes Congress and is signed by President Clinton.
Some
critics of the House proposal, which is billed as post office
"modernization," have suggested that it would allow the
Postal Service to get into businesses such as the licensing of
Internet Web sites and the processing of electronic bill payments between
customers and private firms.
Indeed, some people have suggested that the
Postal Service should try to find a way to cash in on all the e-mail that is
sent, postage-stampless, on the Internet, because Internet traffic supposedly is
depriving the Postal Service of revenue.
HR 22 doesn't
seem like "modernization" in any ordinary sense of the word.
Instead, it would seem to free the Postal Service from
restrictions that protect the public and turn the agency loose to use its
monopoly position to beat out private competitors.
When House members
look at the proposal, let us hope that they see through its "modernization"
label to the bad deal it would mean for the mailing public.
LOAD-DATE: July 2, 1999
