Postal Service Supports Five-Day Delivery Plan
The Postal Service has said it is in favor of a proposal by House Republicans to end Saturday mail delivery and make other changes at the U.S. Post Office in order to come up with money to shore up the Highway Trust Fund, the Washington Post reported.
“We not only need five-day delivery,” Postmaster General Patrick Donahue told the Post, “but I would say, if this was able to help take the angst out of the [broader postal] legislation for some lawmakers, that would help us out.”
The Postal Service estimates eliminating Saturday delivery could save the agency about $2 billion a year.
The House’s Republican leaders, Speaker John Boehner of Ohio and Majority Leader Eric Cantor of Virginia, said in a May 30 memo to their members that by discontinuing most Saturday delivery, except for such things as medicine, Congress would have enough money to shore up the trust fund.
“We firmly believe that this is the best way to ensure continued funding of highway projects in a fiscally responsible manner that implements a needed structural reform to a growing federal liability,” Boehner and Cantor said in the memo.
“Adopting this proposal would save $10.7 billion over the next 10 years,” they said.
Donahoe has said the service faces financial challenges because it has a business model that does not allow it to adapt to changes in the marketplace and does not have the legal authority to make fundamental changes.
“We need legislation that, together with our planned changes, confidently enables at least $20 billion in savings by 2016,” Donahoe told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee last July.
