Word: postally
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...Government is the nation's largest employer," says Weidenbaum, his accents echoing Brooklyn, where he grew up in the Depression-poor family of a cab driver. "Clearly the pay raises of Government employees and postal workers have been leading the inflationary parade for years. Somehow, Congress got sold on the notion of 'pay comparability' between the public and private sectors, ignoring the high federal fringes. And who makes the computations of the 'comparability'? Surprise, surprise! It's the civil servants themselves, which is like having the foxes guard the henhouse...
...well as to utilities, department stores, credit-card issuers and other businesses that mail bills by the billions. Says Robert Lenz, assistant comptroller of New York Telephone Co.: "The impact is very direct on us because we mail about 6.2 million bills a month. Roughly each cent of postal increase will cost us some $800,000 a year. That's a big whammo...
...result of the new rates, more companies will deliver letters to the Postal Service in bundles presorted by Zip code, for which they now earn a penny-a-piece discount; that discount will double under the new rate schedule. Security Pacific Bank, for example, will shortly mail all customer statements not from its 530 branches in California but from its Los Angeles headquarters, using automated equipment. Some businesses may turn more to private mail-delivery services; the Wall Street Journal, Reader's Digest and Time Inc. already use carriers to hand-deliver some papers and magazines...
Users of the mail might be less disturbed if they could believe that the postal boost would improve service or reduce the postal deficit. Neither seems likely. Since it was set up in 1970 as a Government-owned corporation that was supposed to earn its own way, the Postal Service has raised rates 150% and cut back service. For example, it now delivers mail to most businesses once a day rather than twice. But it still lost three-quarters of a cent on every piece of mail handled in fiscal 1977, vs. about half a cent in 1974. One reason...
...bill that would repeal the $920 million ceiling on Government contributions to the service out of tax revenues; it would authorize Congress to appropriate any amount that the Postmaster General could demonstrate was needed for public-service functions. Supporters of the bill argue persuasively that the Postal Service cannot operate strictly as a business but that it must provide services that have no hope of paying their own way. Just two examples: maintaining post offices in tiny towns, and charging the same rate to mail a letter from midtown Manhattan across the street or across the continent...