To the editor:

Last month, Postmaster General Patrick Donohoe announced plans to end six-day mail delivery in August. This flies in the face of existing law which requires six-day delivery. Congress has mandated six-day delivery by law since 1983, which is also the last year that the USPS received any taxpayer funding. The people who would suffer include not just postal workers but small business, seniors, veterans and rural Americans.

Donohoe makes the dubious claim that ending Saturday delivery would save money. In fact, it would result in drastic service cuts and lost revenue.

What his plan fails to mention is that it would deprive small businesses of affordable and accessible shipping services, veterans of job opportunities and seniors of medication delivered to their door on Saturday, and make rural Americans second-class citizens with second-class service. It also would starve the USPS of needed revenue streams.

Eight million Americans are employed in the trillion-dollar-a-year mailing industry. Not only could it be your friendly letter carrier losing his or her job, it could just as easily be your neighbor who works in paper production, printing, shipping, greeting cards or direct mail.

This is not a done deal. The American public does not have to, nor should they accept the postmaster general’s ill-conceived and destructive plan. There are better ways to save the postal service.