The United States Postal Service will also increase the price of various classes of mail, by 4.6percentt over all, next month.
"The various classes of mail must support themselves and we cannot cross-subsidize," he said.
In addition to eliminating most Saturday deliveries, the post office has proposed cutting its work force through attrition and wants the option to raise prices above the rate of inflation for some classes of mail.
That should be the case, but is not, for any private communication using any technology: other classes of mail, email, internet telephony, Twitter direct message, or means yet to be invented.
None of these classes of mail is covered by the monopoly on first class mail, a monopoly adopted by Congress in 1872!
The Postal Reform Act of 1970 mandates that every class of mail must cover its own mailing costs.
Under a 1970 law, every class of mail, including periodicals, has to not only break even but help cover the overhead for the Postal Service.
First-class, or letter, mail (called letter post in the United Kingdom) is the basis of the postal service monopoly and, as the class of mail most commonly used by the public, has generally had a simplified rate structure.
But John Roberts, chief executive of Britain's Post Office, views the prospect as back-door opening of the entire market: "You can't liberalise one class of mail in isolation," he argues.
Know if and when each class of mail is able to be sent to be successfully delivered at the destination.
