Keeping the USPS Alive In 1981, legislation was passed to require the United States Post Office to deliver mail six days a week. But because Congress provides less than 0.1% of the total postal budget, the postal service is almost completely dependent on postage sales, which have decreased drastically in the past decade. Now, Congress refuses to make significant legislation reforms. After seeing continuous patterns of decline in the postal service, Postmaster Patrick Donahoe proposes a better solution to this debt- cutting back operating hours- that will not affect package delivery, will not damage large businesses, and will save approximately two billion dollars a year. Since 2006, the post office’s losses have been estimated at twenty-five million dollars a day due to the breakthrough of e-mail and e-billing systems (Vann). This new method of communication decreased mail volume by twenty-six percent of its peak just a few years before. Because of these growing debts, the first proposal to cut down business days was in 2009, when the Postal Service had lost 2.8 billion dollars in the previous year. After waiting three years, Congress was unable to draft reforms to reduce these losses (Stephansen). At the end of 2012, the Postal Service had lost nearly 15.9 billion dollars. Postmaster Patrick Donahoe took matters into his own hands by proposing that the service discontinue mail delivery on Saturdays. Eliminating weekend deliveries while continuing six-day package delivery and deliveries to post-office boxes will decrease the amount of money lost to the post office, while ensuring other benefits. Also, retail locations that are currently operation on Saturdays should not close- they should only postpone any mail deliveries until the following business day (Monday unless it’s a holiday). Putting mail deliveries to a halt on weekends does not mean that package