As I indicated in my testimony last year, the cause of this difficulty lies in our constrained ability to respond to two historic forces that are changing the face of 21 st century communications and our industry. And the forces are the explosive growth of competition and the revolutionary change brought about by electronic communications and the Internet. Since 1995, the Postal Service has been seeking to modernize the law that governs our operations. We have worked closely with John McHugh in the house to develop a fair, meaningful reform bill. We believe strongly that the time to implement reform is now, while the Postal Service is healthy, and before the forces of change create the type of calamity that precipitated reform in the 1960's.
Competition continues to grow at a remarkable pace.
This includes new inroads from traditional competitors, a profusion of start-up delivery firms associated with the Internet, liberalized foreign posts that have opened offices in the United States and purchased American subsidiaries, and the accelerating growth of electronic alternatives to the mail. A similar dynamic exists with the technological erosion of our flagship First-Class Mail product. This is exemplified by the action of the federal government, which has been aggressively promoting electronic payments to vendors and social security recipients, and the use of electronic filing and payments for taxpayers. There appears to be unanimous agreement that this trend will continue and it will accelerate. So far this year, First Class Mail has grown just 1.4 percent.