Show THE mE V VOICE ICE OF BUSINESS VoI Vo- Vo I Would two-tier two postal rates help By Richard L L. L Lesher Pres Chamber of or Commerce of cl the United States Slates A special postal rate for individuals Individuals Individuals In In- When that idea was announced I 1 immediately imagined myself trying to convince an unsympathetic stamp vending machine that I really wanted a stamp for private-not private business Fortunately President Carter and Postmaster General Ballar propose to exercise control downstream of the stamp machine But even so the plan has some serious flaws The w h is envisioned by bythe bythe bythe the Postmaster General the first class dass rate for business would rise to 16 cents while the rate for individuals would remain at 13 cents To qualify for the lower citizen rate a aletter aletter aletter letter would have to have a written hand-written address or return address Mr Bailar indicated that no special measures would be taken to prevent cheating unless it became widespread I 1 dont don't have any problem with the major objective of this pr proposal To hold down the cost of a quasi quasi governmental governmental ser ser- vice That's a fine idea But the Carter Carter-Bailar method is likely to ha have ve exactly the reverse effect for two reasons First a steep increase In the business rate will give businesses an added incentive to avoid using the Postal Ser- Ser vice Some utilities are already delivering their bills themselves themselves themselves them them- selves and various private delivery services which are forbidden by law to Use mailboxes mail mall mailboxes boxes have shown an embarrassing embarrassing embarrassing em em- ability to undercut Postal Service charges while providing the same or better service Like most utilities the Postal Service needs its volume big-volume customers to help pay the costs of serving the profitable less-profitable small user If escalating rate increases drive away too many business users rates will have to be raised or heavily subsidized subsidized subsidized sub sub- for the remaining- remaining individual So the citizen rate probably wouldn't last long even if it were adopted My second objection to this proposal is that it is deceptive Politicians like to pretend that by increasing taxes or other charges on business they can save the individual citizen from having to pay anything This approach cropped up most recently in the Administrations Administration's plan to raise Social Security taxes for the employer but not the employee In reality however all aU that such schemes accomplish is to hide from the consumer the true costs of various services In the end ItIs Itis it itis is the consumer who pays the bill The only thing that varies is the of collection Competitive pressure is what holds down prices But when all competing businesses undergo the same cost increase at the same time-as time would be the case with a rise in postal then rates-then they usually feel free to pass the increase along to their customers in the form of a aprice aprice aprice price increase That after all is exactly what the Postal Service itself is doing when it asks for higher rates What is the answer to the higher ever-higher postal rates In the short run it might help if we didn't demand costly luxuries- luxuries such as local post offices everywhere that have an importance more symbolic than practical In the longer run some form of electronic transmission transmission tran- tran Emission for the bulk of the first class mail mall may be the answer Or perhaps we should encourage encourage encourage en en- courage private competition with the Postal Service rather than passing laws against it In any case case the split-rate split proposal belongs in the dead- dead letter Jetter office |