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167 IRET Congressional Advisory 1 (2004)

handle is hein.taxfoundation/iretcgadv0164 and id is 1 raw text is: INSTITUTE FOR RESEARCH ON THE ECONOMICS OF TAXATION IRET is a non-profit 501 (c)(3) economic policy research and educational organization devoted to informing the public about policies that will promote growth and efficient operation of the market economy. March 19, 2004 Advisory No. 167 POSTAL SERVICE CANCELS SOME ELECTRONIC AND FINANCIAL SERVICES PRODUCTS; SHOULD CANCEL MORE Executive Summary The U.S. Postal Service recently announced that it will soon discontinue USPS eBillPay, an on- line bill payment service, and two related ventures. Like several other products the government- owned Postal Service has rolled out and then terminated in the last several years, these services have virtually no connection with the agency's core mission, which is the hard-copy delivery of non-urgent letters and periodicals. While the Postal Service is right to pull the plug on these money-losing ventures, it never should have offered them in the first place. The government agency's non-core operations serve no worthwhile public policy purpose. They often yield poor financial results, which weakens the agency, burdens ratepayers within the postal monopoly, and threatens taxpayers. They also tend to be inefficient and are unfair to the private-sector businesses against which the government agency competes. The Postal Service should stick to its central mission. The agency's difficulties in fulfilling its core tasks are no excuse for forays into markets already served by private-sector businesses. To enhance transparency and accountability, it would be good public policy for Congress to enact legislation requiring that the Postal Service publicly disclose, on a regular basis, the revenues and costs of each of its products in non-core markets. The Postal Service's regulator should have statutory power to ensure the Service obeys the requirement. An even better reform would be requiring, by statute, that the Postal Service devote all its energies to its central mission and discontinue new forays into competitive markets. g~em AI~ S I 66, 6 A~

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