The following is a perspective by postal commentator Gene Del Polito for Direct magazine. The views expressed are the author's and do not necessarily reflect the official views of the Association for Postal Commerce or the editors and publisher of Direct.

The U.S. Postal Service has barely completed implementing its latest round of postal rate increases, and postal officials already are talking about the inevitability of yet another round of increases. Postal observers who closely track postal costs and revenues have concluded that the Postal Service probably will file for even more rate increases by mid- or late-summer 2001. 

To anyone who can still walk, talk, and breathe it should be plain that things aren't going well with the U.S. Postal Service (USPS). Costs look as if they're beyond anyone's control (or at least their willingness to control them), the growth of postal volume is flattening, the long talked about transformation in the way Americans communicate and do business is being actualized, and postal officials' confidence in their ability to do anything to shape the future of the nation's postal system is flagging.  

If people are unhappy with this year's postal rate increases, wait'll they take a gander at 2002's. If that's not enough to get their attention, wait'll they see what 2003 and beyond has in store. 

By now, it should be plain that the message that needs to be conveyed is that the USPS is seriously ill, that no over-the-counter remedy is likely to work, and that the patient needs the kind of critical care that only Congress and the new Administration have within their power to provide. Unfortunately, the likelihood that this Congress and Administration (let alone any other) are going to do something to rectify the ills plaguing our postal system without the encouragement, insistence, and support of everyone whose business requires universal mail service is virtually nil. 

In this matter, as in all matters of public policy, there are a few maxims that apply. The first is that "all politics is local." The second is that "Congress legislates for those it sees." Taken together, these mean that nothing--I repeat, NOTHING--will ever be done to place our postal system on a stable footing until and unless the people within our industry are willing to make the issue of postal reform a very local and visible issue to those who represent their interests in Washington. 

Until and unless direct mailers, mail service providers, catalog merchants, and all those who support the use of mail for business communication and commerce are willing to play a personal role in this issue, postal legislative reform will remain a pipe dream. If those within our industry continue to shirk this responsibility and palm it off on others, then annual rounds of greater than inflation postal rate increases had better to a reality to which all should become accustomed.