Lyndon B. Johnson photo

Special Message to the Congress on Federal Pay and Postal Rates.

April 05, 1967

To the Congress of the United States:

Two weeks ago in my Message to the Congress on the Quality of American Government, I stated:

"The machinery of our Government has served us well. It has been the vehicle of the greatest progress and prosperity any nation has ever achieved.

"But this record should give us no cause for complacency. For any realistic review today reveals that there are substantial improvements to be made."

Today I ask the Congress to take two vital steps to help bring about those improvements:

--Increase the salaries o! Government employees.

--Increase postal rates and improve postal services.

In America we demand the highest level of excellence in the public service. If we expect high quality,

--We must be able to attract and keep highly competent career employees.

--We must be willing to give them the machinery they need to do an effective job.

SALARY INCREASES

Through the years, this Nation has built a corps of public servants whose quality is unmatched by any other country in the world.

Our career employees are well-trained and experienced. In ever-increasing numbers, they are skilled professionals. They include not only administrators and managers, but doctors, lawyers, diplomats, economists, scientists, engineers, actuaries, systems analysts, law enforcement officers, nurses--and many others critically needed to provide public services in a complex world.

These men and women come to the public service not by chance, but by choice. They come because they are challenged by problems that are far-reaching--and fateful. They come because Government offers unique opportunities for unselfish service.

From them, we expect unusual dedication. In turn, they have a right to expect from their Government rewards that match their contributions.

We have made great progress recently toward a pay scale which approaches that of private industry. Since 1962, civilian employees have received pay increases amounting to more than 23 percent. We have improved retirement and other fringe benefits so that they now compare favorably with benefits in private industry. There have been corresponding increases in military pay, and fringe benefits have been improved substantially.

Yet we still fall short of comparability with private industry. The Annual Report of the Chairman of the Civil Service Commission and the Director of the Bureau of the Budget describes the gap which remains between Government and industry pay scales. I am transmitting that Report to the Congress today with the renewed conviction that this gap must be closed.

To close this gap in one year would require an average pay increase of 7.2 percent. With a similar increase for the armed forces, the cost would be more than $2.5 billion per year.

In view of today's fiscal and economic conditions, my advisers inform me that a pay raise of this magnitude would not be prudent. While inflationary pressures in the economy have lessened in recent months, they have not disappeared. They could easily recur. We must therefore continue to seek restraint in private wage settlements and to exercise restraint in the operations of Government.

But a pay raise for the Government's employees clearly is needed. We must avoid placing the Government at a serious disadvantage in recruiting and retaining competent workers--and we must keep faith with our employees.

To do so requires that we achieve comparability with private pay levels--and that we do it in a way which does not endanger our unparalleled economic prosperity.

As President Kennedy said five years ago, "to pay more than this is to be unfair to American taxpayers--to pay less is to degrade the public service and endanger our national security."

I recommend a 4.5 percent pay increase for civilian employees effective October 1, 1967.

I recommend that the Congress take the final step this year to achieve full comparability with private industry. I propose a two stage plan to remove the remaining comparability lag in all grades by October 1, 1969. The first step would take effect in October 1968 and the second a year later.

For our military personnel, pay alone can never reflect the full measure of our debt. On the battlefields, in outposts where there is tension but no battle, in the vast defense installations of our country, these men and women protect our national security. We must assure them and their families that they will be compensated for their service on a scale which is comparable to that of their 2.5 million civilian coworkers. As civilian pay goes up, so should the pay of the Armed Services.

I recommend an increase in regular military pay similar to the raise for civilians-an average 4.5 percent effective October 1, 1967.

This year the Secretary of Defense has been conducting a searching review of the principles underlying the military compensation system. When these studies have been completed, I will recommend further changes in the Armed Forces pay system.

We must also take steps to ensure the adequacy of salaries for top officials in the Legislative, Judicial and Executive Branches of the Government. To this end, I have established a special Commission headed by Frederick R. Kappel to study executive pay in the three branches of the Federal Government.1 When I have reviewed its report, I will make recommendations for appropriate adjustments in these areas.

1 The President's appointment of an eight-member Advisory Committee on Top Federal Salaries, chaired by Frederick R. Kappel, former chairman of the board of the American Telephone and Telegraph Co., was announced by the White House on March 22, 1967 (see Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, vol. 3, p. 526).

Salary reform for the government of an increasingly complex and ever-changing society is never complete. The entire structure and interrelationships of all Federal pay systems, civilian and military, should be continually reviewed and improved. The adequacy of the basic pay system itself must be periodically re-examined.

I recommend that a special Joint Salary Commission, representing the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial Branches, be established to examine all Federal pay systems and report to the President and Congress within two years.

POSTAL RATES AND SERVICES

The Postal Service is the key link of the Nation's commerce. It is also the personal communications network of some 200 million private citizens. It must be responsive to the needs of the public and the needs of the business community.

That system now bears a tremendous burden. Each year the Post Office Department processes as much mail as the rest of the world combined. To cope with the great outpouring of mail created by our country's increasing social and economic activity, we must have a modern, highly mechanized postal service.

We do not have such a postal service today. The Post Offices in many of our major cities were built during the 1930's--built to handle between 25 and 30 billion pieces of mail a year. This year, nearly 80 billion items will move through the postal system. Next year still another 3 billion pieces of mail will be processed. If this growth rate continues, mail volume will exceed 100 billion pieces a year by 1976.

These figures make it dramatically clear that we must remodel old Post Offices and build new facilities. We must equip them with modern, high-speed mail processing machines--the most efficient our Nation's technology can produce.

We have made a good start in the past few years on modernizing and mechanizing the Postal Service. That pace must now be quickened. We must .place even greater emphasis on research, engineering and new technology. We must intensify our efforts to enlist the support of all Americans to increase their use of the ZIP code.

In the 1968 Budget I have recommended more than $300 million for postal modernization. This represents a 40 percent increase in expenditures for research and engineering and a 46 percent increase in funds for plant and equipment.

These are substantial increases. But they are fully justified by the planning that has preceded them and the size of the task that lies ahead.

To keep pace with the demands of a growing Nation, we must also modernize the postal rate structure. We must bring postal revenues into line with operating costs.

Present rates do not provide sufficient funds for necessary improvements in postal facilities and equipment. Indeed, present revenues do not even cover normal operating costs.

For fiscal 1968, the Post Office Department deficit will be about $1.2 billion--and this does not include the pay increase I am recommending today. Less than half of this deficit is attributable to the "public service" functions of the Department.

Yet the Postal Policy Act of 1958 calls for postal revenues "approximately equal" to operating costs after public service expenses have been deducted.

I recommend that the Congress increase postal rates/or all classes of mail:

--First class and airmail: a one cent increase in postage for cards and letters sent first class or airmail, effective July 1, 1967.

--Second class: an average increase of 22 percent for all categories of second class mail, phased over a three-year period beginning January 1, 1968.

--Third class: an average increase of 28 percent for all categories of third class mail. The rate increase for single pieces of mail will go into effect July 1, 1967 and the bulk rate increase on January 1, 1968.

--Fourth class: an average increase of 21 percent for special rate fourth class mail (mainly books and records), effective July 1, 1967.

--At special surcharge on odd-sized envelopes which cannot be processed by postal machinery. This surcharge, which will go into effect in two years, is designed to discourage the use of envelopes which cannot be rapidly processed through 'postal machinery.

The rate increases for second and third class bulk mail would have been substantially higher and would have been needed sooner if the ZIP Code presorting regulations had not become effective on January r of this year. In recognition of the cost to mailers of ZIP Coding and the savings anticipated from this program, I am recommending that the effective date for second class and bulk rate third class increases be delayed until January 1, 1968.

These postal rate increases will produce $700 million in postal revenues in fiscal 1968. When fully effective, they will add more than $800 million annually to postal revenues.

This legislation will provide the necessary funds for postal modernization and the proposed pay increase for postal employees. It will enable the Post Office Department to begin immediately to provide better services for all Americans:

--Faster and more efficient delivery of the mails,

--Restoration of six-day parcel post service,

--Door delivery in some residential areas now served by road-side boxes.

A BETTER GOVERNMENT

The pay and postal rate increases I recommend in this message are essential if we are to have a government of responsive and talented people and an efficient postal system.

Delay in attaining comparability beyond the effective dates I have suggested is inexcusable. To neglect--and thus impair-the public service would be far more expensive for the American people in the long run.

Delay in enacting the postal rate increases I request will hamper significantly our efforts to build a modern and efficient postal system.

The government of this nation can never be any better than the people who work for it, the tools they have, and the people whom they serve.

I urge the Congress to act promptly on these proposals to insure those who work in our government just pay for the dedication they bring to the task of serving everyone of us,

LYNDON B. JOHNSON

The White House

April 5, 1967

Note: The Postal Revenue and Federal Salary Act of 1967 was approved by the President on December 16, 1967 (see Item 546).

Lyndon B. Johnson, Special Message to the Congress on Federal Pay and Postal Rates. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/237673

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