An editorial in yesterday’s Federal Times called for a special Presidential Commission to look at the future of the U.S. Postal Service but did not recommend any specific course of action.
“The time has come for the nation to address the critical issues and challenges confronting the USPS,” the editorial said and. “The creation of a presidential commission composed of representatives of the postal service, mailers, employee groups, the public and other interested sectors, to look carefully at the postal service and its future would be a good start.”
According to the newspaper, published by Army Times Publishing Inc., “these are tough and uncertain times” for the USPS. Its top officials are calling for half a billion dollars worth of spending cuts to stave off a projected deficit this fiscal year. It faces stiff opposition over a proposed rate increase. Revenues are declining because of increased electronic commerce.
Meantime postal reform legislation is stalled in Congress and a member of the Postal Rate Commission is calling for the privatization of the USPS.
As a result, the newspaper said “there is little likelihood of the current avenues of debate in Congress and before the PRC will result in any meaningful and well-balanced solution” to the postal service’s problems.
There was no immediate comment from postal officials or the House postal subcommittee chaired by Rep. John McHugh (R-NY), author of the Postal Modernization Act (HR-22) which has been stalled in the House Government Reform Committee since gaining subcommittee approval last spring.
While McHugh’s bill would increase some of the PRC’s controls over the USPS, it would let the postal service: set many of its own rates; create a separate corporation to oversee those products and services that compete with private business and introduce new products and services on a trial basis without seeking the PRC’s endorsement.
Richard Barton, the Direct Marketing Association’s senior vice president, Congressional matters, said Congress could open the door for the creation of a Presidential study commission if it fails to pass McHugh’s postal reform bill which the DMA supports.
He did suggest, however, that the DMA might endorse creation of the study panel if postal reform legislation is not approved and signed into law.
Neal Denton, Alliance of Nonprofit Mailers executive director, also suggested his group might support such a commission if postal reform legislation is not adopted and signed into law.
“All of us who have been involved in working on postal reform over the last five or six years would like to think it could be done by the political process, but it could well be that it will take a separate commission working outside of the political arena to really make some recommendations that would improve the USPS,” he said.
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