Letters to the Editor: Can the Mails Be Letter Perfect?
To borrow a phrase from James Bovard's blatanty distorted Aug. 6 editorial-page commentary on the Postal Service, "Getting the Mail to Sail," the author has ". . . yet to corner the market on veracity." It simply does not stand to reason that demand for a service as poor and as expensive as claimed by Mr. Bovard, and in an extremely competitive environment, would continue to grow by 4%, 5% or 10% a year. Yet this is, in fact, what has happened over the last three years.</br></br>Equally ridiculous is Mr. Bovard's contention that the present system is a failure because postage rates have not stood still over the last 20 years. Even the most cursory historical survey reveals "price stability" is generally alien to the private sector during periods of high inflation.</br></br>Mr. Bovard's statement that the Postal Service has proposed dropping rates for selected second-, third- and fourth-class mail is seriously misleading. Increases of 11.7% for most second-class, 21.9% for most third-class and 11.7% for most fourth-class mail have been proposed.</br></br>Nor is it true, as Mr. Bovard says, that Congress considers ZIP plus 4 a "twice-fizzled panacea." Studies by Congressional committees and the General Accounting Office have concluded that ZIP plus 4 and accompanying automation will more than pay their way while substantially improving postal efficiency and service.</br></br>In his desire to criticize Postal management for overstating productivity gains, Mr. Bovard missed a key point -- the changing mix of mail is a direct result of a program begun several years ago to grant mailers rate discounts in return for greater preparation of the mail. This kind of "contracting" of postal work to the private sector is significant progress in the direction so fervently championed by Mr. Bovard -- without jeapardizing the universality of the present system, a result which would certainly follow from his heavyhanded and poorly thought-out proposal.