Stamp of Approval

Not so long ago a quarter would buy a paperback book or a quart of milk or admission to a Saturday matinee with a double feature and 10 cartoons. Starting April 3 it will take a quarter to buy a first-class stamp. But, even as we are awash in nostalgia for the 3-cent stamp, we ought to remember that the Postal Service, everyone’s favorite scapegoat, is worth every penny.

Anyone who has ever sent an airmail postcard from some exotic foreign place and arrived home two months before the postcard knows that the delay doesn’t happen in the United States. The Postal Service delivers 160 billion pieces of mail a year, nearly all of it in timely fashion--and with only minor taxpayer subsidies. The 1970 law that made the Postal Service an independent agency also required that it break even over time; the Postal Service has lived up to its obligation, operating in the black for five of the last 10 years.

The latest rate increase was made necessary because the Postal Service finished last year with a $223-million loss. Third-class advertising mail, in particular, was not paying its own way and, under the new rate structure, will be hit with the stiffest increases; the cost of a third-class mailing will jump 24.9%--good news to all of us who resent the way junk mail clogs our mailboxes.

The new increase in second-class rates eventually will make magazine subscriptions slightly more expensive, but consumers will generally get off lightly. Though it may be hard to believe, the cost of a first-class stamp has barely kept even with inflation over the last half-century. Even after this latest increase, sending a first-class letter will take only about the same bite from the average wallet that it did in 1932; adjusted for inflation, the 3-cent postage rate that went into effect that year would amount to 25.5 cents today.

Because the April increase comes on the heels of cutbacks in service, there will be complaints that the Postal Service is an overgrown, overstaffed monster that could be run more efficiently as a private enterprise. But the recent reduction in window hours and the elimination of Sunday collections can’t be blamed on the Postal Service. After Congress and the Reagan Administration reached their budget compromise last fall, the Postal Service was ordered to trim $1.2 billion from its operating budget--to make the overall federal ledger look better.

When the last postage increase was announced, a bargain-hunter of our acquaintance rushed to the post office to stock up on stamps before the price went up. We all had a good laugh at her expense; actually, we should have told her: Relax--in this country stamps are always a bargain.