Press Release: 9/15/2010

Crunch Time: Affordable Mail Alliance Releases First Print Ad
Just 19 Days to Stop Postal Rate Hikes

Washington, DC – The Affordable Mail Alliance – a coalition of non-profits, Fortune 500 companies, small businesses, major trade associations, consumer groups, and citizens representing the vast majority of the mail sent in the United States – today continued its high-profile campaign with a print advertisement asking the Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC) to reject the Postal Service’s demand to increase rates by close to ten times the rate of inflation.

“The Postal Regulatory Commission has only nineteen days left to reject this massive rate hike and in this print ad we’re asking them to do the right thing,” said Jerry Cerasale, Affordable Mail Alliance Spokesperson and Senior Vice President of Government Affairs for the Direct Marketing Association. “Our membership of is doing everything in their power to get the message across that a rate increase would be bad for business, bad for the economy, bad for jobs and bad for the Postal Service itself.”

The Affordable Mail Alliance ad – running today in Roll Call – is a call to action to the PRC to send the Postal Service’s rate increase “back to sender.” It focuses on the economic impact a rate increase of this kind would have on the economy. As stated in the ad, “The Postal service wants to raise postal rates ten times the rate of inflation. This is the wrong message to send a nation that desperately needs to stimulate economic growth.”

“Over 1,000 non-profits, local newspapers, successful companies and small business from across the country have a reason for joining the Alliance,” said Cerasale. “They know this unproductive and unlawful rate increase simply will not help the Postal Service and will hurt our economy and jobs.”