Postal service killing small periodicals

If the US Post Office has its way, over two hundred years of American tradition will be swept away in the name of the bottom line. They believe that the death of small circulation periodicals is a "win-win" situation for the nation.

Earlier this month a House subcommittee heard testimony on the impact of Post Office's new rate hike, up to 50 per cent in some cases, on the small periodical industry. Faced with this tremendous cost to doing business, many small circulation magazines will be forced to close. Elijah Cummings Democratic congressman from Baltimore, which is home to the Afro-American Newspaper, one of the publications faced with extinction asked James Miller, chairman of the USPS's Board of Governors, the entity that approved the rate hikes, if he thought the demise of small periodicals would be a "win win" for the nation. Cummings:

I'm asking you a simple question. If they go out of business, is it a win-win?...

Miller:

"Yes, yes,...It's not that I'm heartless. It's not that we're heartless. We have to cover all sides. And I think the fairest thing is for every class of mail to cover the cost directly attributable to carrying their mail."

This answer however is not exactly true. Since 1970 all classes of mail have been required to cover the actual costs of their delivery. However when that rule was made an exception was made for small circulation publications that exempted them from also covering the Post Office's overhead, such items as infrastructure, employees, and other costs. This exemption was based on the two hundred year old tradition of giving magazines and newspapers a special rate owing to the importance that the Founding Fathers attached to such publications. Indeed it was primarily for the transport of publications that the Post Office was set up in the first place. Indeed, so important were such materials considered that George Washington supported mailing all newspapers for free. Prior to the rate increase the Postal Service submitted a proposal to the Postal Regulatory Commission that would have raised the rates on all publications more or less evenly, but that proposal was rejected by the commission in favor of one submitted by Time Warner which, no surprise, hits small publications with much steeper rate hikes than those for the mega corporations. The rate increases are seen by many critics as part of the Republican fetish for privatization. Chairman Miller, who was executive director of a Presidential Task Force on Regulatory Relief, chairman of the Federal Trade Commission, and director of the Office of Management and Budget under Reagan, is seen as a banner carrier for the cause. It is the dream of the privatization crowd to make the world save for mega corporations. This rate hike is another step down that road.