'FREEDOMS': EVERYTHING YOU SHOULD TELL CONGRESS ABOUT POSTAL REFORM

The following is a perspective by postal commentator Gene Del Polito for Direct magazine.

This is the year it's supposed to happen. This is the year in which Congress supposedly is finally going to get serious about and pass meaningful postal legislative reform. Still unanswered, however, is what the House and Senate will propose? On which formulation will they agree? And, finally, how will the Postal Service, the mailing industry, and postal labor respond to the proposals that will be set forth?

I can't answer for the Postal Service or postal labor, but I do know that the members of our industry cannot afford to sit idly by while Congress mulls over their future. There's one thing we know for sure, if Congress fails to pass meaningful reform before 2006, our industry will have to face its worst postal rate increase nightmare ever. In short, mailers should expect this year to get actively involved in an industry-wide effort to convince Congress to act before the postal rate hammer falls. But what is it that you should ask your member of Congress to do?

Above all, make sure your congressional representative and your senators know precisely what you believe must be in any legislative package to produce any meaningful reform. Over the past several months, the Association for Postal Commerce has been grappling with this issue, and we've whittled down the infinities of our wish list to a list of eight essential principles that must underlie reform. We call them the "FREEDOMS" after the acronym that can be created from the first letter of the first word on each element of the list.

If postal reform is to work, we believe that at a minimum any legislative proposal must be designed to:

• Fix CSRS and Military Benefits
• Require Bottom-Up costing
• Enable Pricing Flexibility
• Expedite the Administrative Process
• Define Universal Postal Services
• Optimize Private Sector Management Authority, Incentives and Pay Comparability
• Maintain the Mailbox Monopoly
• Strengthen Regulatory Oversight and Postal Reporting Transparency

While these words may seem few, the details that add flesh on these linguistic bones are many. Unfortunately, it is impossible to elaborate on each of these principles in sufficient detail in an article such as this. Nonetheless, understanding the underlying detail is important. Better yet, it's available for just for the asking. All you need do is drop an email to info@postcom.org. I'll make sure you get it for FREE. What more could you ask?