US Postal Service Wants to Cancel Saturday Deliveries to Balance Budget

(MarketWatch) - The US Postal Service will be unable to pay two major bills later this year unless Congress changes the law to eliminate Saturday mail deliveries, MarketWatch reported Thursday.

Postmaster general Patrick R. Donahoe told the House Postal Oversight Committee on Wednesday that the US Postal Service would be out of cash unless the Saturday deliveries were canceled.

The service must lay out $5.5 billion as an advance payment to cover future retirees' medical costs on Sept. 30 -- the end of the fiscal year.

And in October, it must pay $1.3 billion for workers compensation, Donahoe told lawmakers.

The agency has cut 240,000 workers in recent years and shaved $3 billion of costs from its budget last year.

But the service still needed to find another $2 billion of cost cuts this year, according to reports.

In September, regulators rejected the Postal Service's request to raise the first-class-letter rate to 46 cents from 44 cents.

Source: MarketWatch