By Reed Anfinson
President of the National Newspaper
Association
And Publisher of the Swift County (MN)
Monitor-News
Now that US
Senate has passed a bill, S 1789, to reform the ailing US Postal Service,
critics are trying to disable the bill on its way to the House of
Representatives. Business Week
recently catalogued unhappy stakeholders, including postal unions, postal
management and some Republicans who wrongly think the bill burdens taxpayers.
Rep.
Darrell Issa, R-CA, whose own bill awaits action in the House, blasted
"special interests." But Business
Week says, "Considering how many people are unhappy with the bill, it
isn’t clear which special interests Issa is referring to."
Some see the
Senate bill as the inevitable product of the sausage machine. But it is neither
a budget buster nor processed meat. It is the expression of a better vision of
the Postal Service.
If you
consider that survival of the service means maintaining the circulatory system
for a $1.1 trillion mailing industry - or in other words, making sure cash, greeting
cards, packages and newspapers and magazines arrive on time, the Senate bill is
good medicine.
Consider some
of the alternative fixes.
Issa's bill
would let USPS immediately end Saturday mail, close half the mail processing
centers and thousands of post offices, and put a new board of political
appointees in charge. The new board would be expected to trim workers' benefits
and maybe wages, and direct the Postmaster General to favor profit over
service.
At the
other extreme might be Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-VT, who
wanted to keep everything open. Labor unions backing him say that USPS will
heal as the economy heals. Then there is the White House's notion: to raise
postage rates.
For Sens.
Susan Collins, R-ME, and Joe Lieberman, I-CT, neither extreme is suited to
long-term survival of USPS.
To many
experts, Issa's approach is likely to frighten away businesses that mail. The
Lieberman-Collins bill agrees that USPS needs a more flexible, less costly
workforce. It keeps mail flowing through today's network while cost cutting is
underway. For example, they would end Saturday mail delivery in two
years, but only if USPS has taken other big steps toward financial viability. They
would allow the closing of postal plants now, if USPS preserves local mail
delivery speed.
Is their
bill the product of compromise, or of a different vision?
Consider:
--The
Postal Service's plant-closing plan is based on a desire to amass more mail at
automated urban centers, where costly machines sit idle much of the day. To
optimize machines, USPS would haul mail much farther. But the hauling would
slow the mailstream, particularly in small towns and rural areas that are far
from mail plants and create a set of second-class citizens who would get and
send mail more slowly than urban dwellers. It would also hamper smaller
communities' quests for economic development.
- Many
Americans say they wouldn't miss Saturday mail. But USPS builds its system
around senders, not receivers. Who would be hurt by a 5-day delivery regime?
Anyone who depends on timely mail delivery. Shutting down the system two days a
week—three when Monday holidays occur—would create delay, according to the
Postal Regulatory Commission. Then there are those who need prescriptions
delivered when they are at home; small-town citizens who get the newspaper by
mail and businesses needing 6-day cash flows.
- Closing
small post offices seems a no-brainer to city dwellers who spot those one-room
POs at the roadside on the way to the beach. Surely not all are needed.
But rather than closing them entirely, USPS could have circuit-rider
postmasters to open them a few hours a day. That is affordable if worker
benefits are brought into line with the private sector. For those communities,
a circuit rider could continue their links to the world.
- The
Congressional Budget Office says the Senate bill would cost $33.6 billion,
adding to the federal deficit. But postage-payers, not taxpayers, carry that
burden. Taxpayers face a liability as the funder-of-last resort only if postage
revenues dry up - which is more likely to happen if the mail slows to a crawl.
Finally,
members of Congress may differ on how they see USPS. Is it a corporation?
Is it a government agency responsible for binding the nation together?
Fact: it is
a Government-Sponsored Enterprise or GSE, more like Fannie Mae than like IBM or
the Defense Department. It has to use business tools, but carry out a public
mission. And it has enormous power in the marketplace. Consider, for example,
its new Every Door Direct Mail program, which directly competes with many
private businesses. Members of Congress who mistakenly see postal reform as an
exercise in deregulating a company may actually unleash a powerful federal agency,
while those who look to raising postage so generous worker benefits can
continue could pull the plug on the economic engine that keeps jobs alive.
It isn't
compromise that is needed, but a clear-eyed vision based on a full
understanding of the needs of all whom the Postal Service serves. Postal
management today has an impossible task, expected to accomplish business goals
without the cost-controlling tools businesses have, and expected to achieve
government ends without federal support. Congress owns this confusion. Only
Congress can fix it and it will continue to need to fine-tune its solutions as
communications cultures change. No bill passed today will avoid the need for
legislation in the future. Neither
"deregulating" it nor hiking rates will get USPS to stability. Nor
will abrupt and disruptive approaches to labor costs.
Senators
Collins and Lieberman, along with co-sponsors Tom Carper, D-DE, and Scott
Brown, R-MA, have devoted endless hours to understanding the challenge and to
crafting the next steps toward fixing it. Their approach deserves considerably
more respect than it is getting.