The U.S. Postal Service is planning to drop Saturday delivery of mail in August. Iowa Congressman, Bruce Braley, a Democrat from Waterloo, says he is concerned about the impact after talking with people in his district.
“When you look at the dollar cost savings from eliminating Saturday delivery in rural communities, it is a drop in the bucket compared to many other solutions we looked at on the oversight committee,” Braley says.
He says people in rural communities use the service. “When so many people in rural communities live and work outside of their towns that they live in, and rely upon that Saturday delivery to get mail in and to get mail out, especially small business owners. And so, that’s why I am opposed to it in principal,” Braley says.
“There’s a lot of other things we can do to keep the Postal Service solvent.”
The Postal Service reported nearly $16-billion in losses for its last budget year and expects even larger losses in 2013. The losses last year were triple the losses from the previous year.
While it will stop regular deliver of mail on Saturday, the Postal Service will continue to deliver packages six days a week and post office boxes will still get mail on Saturdays and post offices that are now open Saturdays will remain open on Saturdays.