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Great News and Congressional Action |
Dear SMC Members:
I am sending this notice to all SMC members with important information about the next postal rate adjustment and actions you can take to help the Postal Service and your business.
RATE ADJUSTMENT
I predict the Postal Service will announce its proposals to adjust rates and regulations between now and February 15. With Presidents Day falling on Monday, February 16, 2009, there is a good chance the Postal Service will announce its rate adjustments next week.
I will be in Washington, D.C. attending postal meetings between Monday and Wednesday of next week. Once an announcement is made, it will take a few days for me to study the rate tables and pull out the information that means the most to our members. Because saturation mail has many different rate elements, including the base rate, the pound rate, separate discounts for drop entry, and the DAL surcharge, it is likely to take a few days to digest and produce information for members that is in a helpful format to determine how the new rates will impact your mailing profile.
I guess what I am saying is be patient with me. If you hear the Postal Service has announced a postal rate change, give me some breathing room to distribute information and to explain what this means for saturation mailers. The rates will not go into effect until 90 days after the Postal Service announcement.
We have been aggressive in asking the Postal Service to consider some proposals and ideas that could help our members. If these are included or discussed in any rate filing, we will need some extra time to analyze and prepare information for you on the Postal Service's proposal.
CONGRESSIONAL RELIEF
We are pleased to report that Senator Carper (D-Del.) has introduced an amendment that he is seeking to add to HR1, the stimulus bill, that would give the Postal Service some breathing room on its Postal Service Retiree Health Benefits obligation. Last week SMC Steering Committee Member Vince Giuliano spent an entire week in Washington, D.C. on behalf of his company, Valassis (and the saturation mail industry in general) talking about the crises at the Postal Service. Although Postmaster General Potter made an appeal in a Senate oversight hearing for relief from the unreasonable health prepayment burden on the USPS, most of the publicity and the press went to his request to consider reducing required mail service from six days to five days.
I am continuing to call upon all SMC members to contact your two state senators and any representative serving in districts where you do business about the importance of helping the Postal Service.
I cannot stress enough that the Postal Service is not seen as a sympathetic agency on Capitol Hill. We need to make elected officials understand that relief for the Postal Service means relief for the tax-paying businesses - like you - in their districts who are struggling to survive. Tell your elected officials where you do business, the number of persons you employ, and the number of businesses that use your coupon envelop, mail program, or free paper to get in business and stay in business.
Ask your elected officials to support and pass a law like the proposal introduced by Congressman John McHugh, HR22, to authorize the Postal Service to pay its current retiree health costs out of the currently over-funded future Retiree Health Benefits Fund. Show support for the proposal introduced by Senator Tom Carper (D-Del.), Senate Amendment 146 to HR 1, to use funds currently available in the Postal Service Retiree Health Benefits Fund to pay current retiree health benefits.
The Carper proposal would provide relief for two years. The McHugh proposal is more favorable for the Postal Service in that it would provide relief for the next 8 years.
We need to tell the Postal Service that the Postal Service, and your business, are burdened by a bad, unreasonable mortgage. We are just asking for refinancing! This is not a bail-out. It won't cost taxpayers a dime. Instead, it could allow the Postal Service and your business to survive in a changing communications environment and greatly depressed economic conditions.
I am attaching a copy of the model letter to McHugh I sent previously to all members along with a fact sheet on the need for a comprehensive solution to save the US Postal Service.
The next few weeks should be interesting. I will endeavor to give you the best, most accurate news as soon as possible after I receive it. Thanks.
Donna E. Hanbery
Saturation Mailers Coalition
33 South Sixth Street, Suite 4040
Minneapolis, MN 55402
(612) 340-9350/direct dial
(612) 340-9446/fax
ana
Download the Model Letter
Download the Fact Sheet
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