'Exigent' postal increase is bad idea at bad time

The National Newspaper Association, to which the Southeast Missourian belongs, has joined the fight to halt the U.S. Postal Service's "exigent" price increase filed July 6 with the Postal Regulatory Commission. The price increases include a 2-cent increase on the first-class stamp but a much more serious increase for the mailing of newspapers and magazines.

The increase will also affect churches, community organizations and labor groups that use not-for-profit mail. It will affect businesses that use the mail for communications and advertising. It will affect catalog companies that send packages in the mail. It will affect everyone.

The new rates will be effective Jan. 2, 2011, unless the PRC stops them.

The NNA's fight is in the best interest of consumers and anyone who mails.

In 2006, a price cap that held postage rates within inflation levels went into effect as a result of the work of NNA and other groups representing users of the mail. That cap allows increases only within the Consumer Price Index as tracked by the PRC, which is under 1 percent currently. The USPS wants an average of 5 percent increase in postage. The proposed rates would weaken the cap and maybe destroy it forever.

To its credit, the USPS did not try to increase rates in 2010 following the severe recession starting in 2008. But it blames its problems on the recession, in large part, even though its mail volumes began to fall in 2007, before the recession. It also notes competition from the Internet as a reason for its current financial woes. Yet it wants to solve its problems by charging more. It is a solution that could lead, as U.S. Sen. Susan Collins of Maine said, to a death spiral by our important national universal mail system.

Postal losses have been caused in part by congressional mandates requiring $5.5 billion a year for 10 years prepaid into a retiree health benefit fund, something no other federal agency is forced to do. They also stem from the USPS's unwillingness to address high labor costs, which drive up expenses despite other cost-cutting moves.

To be sure, the postal service is allowed to increase rates beyond inflation when an "exigency" occurs. It argues to the Postal Regulatory Commission that recession plus Internet competition equal exigency. But when the law was written, the USPS had just suffered an attack of anthrax in the mail, which could have shut down the entire system. That is the sort of "exigency" that Congress had in mind, not an inability to control the cost of service.

Newspapers and many other employers in our communities have had to cut wages, benefits and hours of employees during this recession. These are painful and harsh. But the postal service has done no layoffs. It has passed along wage increases during the recession. It must get serious about controlling its costs.

Cheryl Kaechele, NNA president and publisher of the Allegan County, Mich., News, said, "NNA continues the fight for newspapers and their subscribers, as we have always done, to keep newspapers affordable. We want our subscribers and advertisers to know that we fight to hold down costs for the benefit of both."

These postage rates are a bad idea at a bad time. Our newspaper has joined the Affordable Mail Alliance, a broad-based coalition of mailing industries representing over 7 million jobs, in this fight.

While Congress has no immediate role in the rate case, our Congressional delegation should be aware of your opposition, as citizens and voters, to both this price increase and five-day delivery, where they are the decision makers. If the price cap is broken for this reason, then it will cease to exist as proscribed by the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006.

If you agree, you may contact U.S. Rep. Jo Ann Emerson at www.house.org, and U.S. Sens. Claire McCaskill and Kit Bond at www.senate.org. Also, the PRC wants to hear from you. Find it at www.prc.gov.