Postal Rate Commissioner Ruth Y. Goldway yesterday said the U.S. Postal Service should be sold and the money used to finance federal and state social programs.
Expressing her personal opinion and not that of the PRC, Goldway said in an Op-Ed piece in yesterday's Washington Post, that selling the USPS would raise at least $100 billion to save it "from oblivion and put government resources to their most efficient and socially responsible use."
Goldway, who describes herself as "a consumer advocate and liberal Democrat," was appointed by President Clinton to the PRC in April 1998.
Goldway told DIRECT Newsline that she decided to go public with her thoughts on the future of the USPS because last year's debate on postal reform legislation sponsored by House postal subcommittee chairman John McHugh (R-NY) "focused on trying to balance the interests of the various individual players to the detriment of the concept of efficiency of mail. [A]nd the relationship between postal communications, our society and business needs and was not of interest to the public."
There was no immediate comment from postal officials or Rep. McHugh.
Gene A. Del Polito, president of PostCom, formerly known as the Advertising Mail Marketing Association, praised Goldway saying, "it took great courage to say what everyone speaks behind close doors and put it right out on the table for public debate.
"My hope now that it's out, is that it's going to be a topic of discussion, that perhaps it will remove some of the log jam in our thinking about the future of the postal system and people will finally take this issue seriously," he added.
"A debate over privatization can be helpful, but only if it focuses attention on record, and the necessity for reform as outlined in Rep. McHugh's proposed HR22," said H. Robert Wientzen, president and CEO of the Direct Marketing Association, in a statement. "This must be the ultimate goal of public policy, to protect the viability of the postal service."
Goldway said that the USPS "could lose up to 30% of its revenues" because of the growth of electronic commerce and consumer online bill paying. She wrote that "postage rates will have to rise dramatically within a few years to make up for lost revenue." She didn't refer to the postal service proposal to hike rates next January by an average of 6.4%.
Goldway estimated that a privatized postal service would pay about $1 billion a year in federal corporate income taxes and another $3 billion in corporate, sales and real estate taxes to state and local governments.
Goldway's proposal would permit public ownership of the USPS, with postal workers owning up to 10% of the stock; abolish the postal service's historic monopoly on addressed first class and Standard A (advertising) Mail; allow mailers to "contract for special services" with a privatized postal service, while subjecting the privatized postal service to various federal and state regulations, ranging from corporate taxes and truth-in-advertising laws to local parking and zoning laws.
Goldway also envisioned a mail industry "regulated by a strong regulatory commission, perhaps the FCC (which already regulates most of the communications industry) to oversee fitness standards for postal operators to ensure privacy and security of the mails."
That agency would be "empowered to provide [government] funds for subsidizing and guaranteeing universal service, should that prove necessary," Goldway said, adding that her proposal "is in step with the deregulation of other utilities and of postal services around the world."
