|
Five Essential Elements of Effective Postal Reform
The Honorable Louis J. Giuliano
Chairman
Board of Governors
United States Postal Service
475 L’Enfant Plaza, SW
Washington, DC 20260-3100
Dear Chairman Giuliano:
We, the undersigned, represent American taxpayers and consumers of postal services. At this crucial juncture in the Postal Service’s history, meaningful reform seems a fundamental requirement for future sustainability. Above all, effective reform must benefit the American people, not just extend the Service's longevity. These are our five essential elements of effective reform:
Cost control. We recognize the valuable leadership current and recent
Postal Service management have exercised to lower operating costs in
line with declining revenue. The Postal Service needs maximum
flexibility to reduce labor costs and to bring its retail, mail
processing and delivery networks in line with currently-projected volume
trends. Management deserves great credit for progress made to date, but
much more must still be done to return the sustainability of the
business model.
Protection for monopoly consumers. The Postal Service’s
monopoly-protected and market-dominant services currently provide more
than 85 percent of total revenues. The household and business customers
who depend on these services must currently pay a much higher share of
organizational costs than consumers of competitive products and
services. Moving forward, monopoly consumers deserve adequate
protection against subsidizing other Postal Service functions, either
through overpayment or through reductions in service.
Financial transparency. Transparency and better cost attribution have
improved under the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act, allowing
postal management to increase efficiency, and observers to monitor their
progress. Ensuring adequate public transparency also helps prevent
abuse of the Postal Service's monopoly power. Yet postal regulators
have raised concerns about the Postal Service’s ability to utilize
financial data effectively in some pricing proceedings, and gaps in
public financial transparency continue to imperil confidence among
stakeholders and consumers.
Consolidate facilities, cut costs. It is time to follow the
recommendation of the Presidential Postal Commission to create an
independent panel modeled after the Pentagon's Base Realignment and
Closure Commission, which achieved billions in savings through four
rounds of closures and consolidations. The panel would consider closing
or consolidating postal processing and distribution facilities that it
identifies as unnecessary to fulfilling the Postal Service’s core
competencies: the reliable, affordable delivery of the mail to every
American home and business. The commission’s process would fully
consider concerns of communities and other interested parties.
Avert unfair taxpayer-funded bailouts. For the last generation, the
Postal Service has been one of the most efficient and responsive
government institutions because it is primarily supported by revenue
from mail users, including households and small businesses. To maintain
the benefits of a self-supporting Postal Service, protect taxpayers,
and prevent the government from falling further into debt, this country
needs genuine postal reform, not a taxpayer bailout.
Sincerely,
Ken McEldowney
Consumer Action
Jim Martin
60 Plus
Chuck Muth
Citizen Outreach
Thomas Schatz
Citizens Against Government Waste
Michael Schuyler
Institute for Research on the Economics of Taxation
Pete Sepp
National Taxpayers Union
Don Soifer
Consumer Postal Council
|
