ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, July 26, 1996 TAG: 9607260021
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BILLY W. MARTIN
IN RESPONSE to comments made by R. Keith Whitley in his July 16 letter to the editor (``Government does it best. Yeah. Right.'') concerning television ads sponsored by the U.S. Postal Service regarding our priority-mail service:
Yes, we at the Postal Service do advertise our products and services just as other businesses do. However, it isn't hogwash, ignorance or stupidity, as he suggests. It's merely a good business practice. The advertisment is accurate and legitimate. We don't think of our customers as gullible or naive, nor do we refer to our customers as ``voters'' as he stated.
Whitley's statistics are totally inaccurate. He states the last time the Postal Service was in the black was when Benjamin Franklin was ``head honcho.'' Last year, we were $1.8 billion in the black. This year, we're expected to be about $1 billion in the black. Doesn't sound too bad to me.
And another interesting fact that many of our customers do not know is that the Postal Service is required by law to break even. What other corporation do you know that does $54 billion a year and is required to break even? How many corporations in the private sector are required to contribute earnings to the federal deficit-reduction efforts of this government? The Postal Service has been required to contribute more than $14 billion since 1982.
His statement that the Postal Service is subsidized is totally inaccurate. Not one penny of our customers' tax dollars is used to subsidize anything in the Postal Service. And not one penny of your taxes has been used by the Postal Service in the past 14 years. Today's self-supporting Postal Service delivers 53 percent more mail to more than 50 million more customers with just 20 percent more employees than it did as the taxpayer-subsidized Post Office Department in 1970. The Postal Service handles more than 580 million pieces of mail every day, or more than 181 billion pieces per year to more than 128 million homes and businesses, six days a week.
With the help of automation, U.S. Postal Service employees are among the most productive postal workers of any industrialized nation's. Where it used to cost $42 to process 1,000 pieces of mail manually, it now costs less than $3 to process 1,000 pieces. Statistics show that our employees are 500 percent more productive than postal workers in Germany, 250 percent more productive than in France or the United Kingdom, and 33 percent more productive than in Japan. The U.S. Postal Service handles 40 percent of the world's mail. The only nation that comes close to that is Japan, which handles only 8 percent. In Japan, you'll pay the equivalent of 80 cents for a first-class stamp. It's 64 cents in Germany and 52 cents in France.
No, we're not perfect, but we do strive for excellence. And I'm one employee who is proud to be a part of the U.S. Postal Service.
Billy W. Martin is postmaster of the Roanoke Post Office.
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