Blitz Bureau
NEW DELHI: The US Postal Service will run out of funds within a year, unless lawmakers lift a cap on how much money the agency can borrow, according to the postmaster general.
In an interview with the Associated Press, David Steiner recently warned that the postal service – which relies on stamps and service fees rather than tax dollars to deliver mail six days a week to every address in the country – would run out of cash for employees and vendors by February next year.
The agency has operated with a financial shortfall almost every fiscal year since 2007, as people and businesses have moved toward paperless billing and digital communication, forgoing first-class mail.
But mail deliveries have continued, with USPS borrowing money from the US treasury to compensate for losses. Steiner, who is scheduled to testify before the Congress this month, has called for changes to a federal law that caps the agency’s borrowing at $15bn.
Despite talk in the Trump administration of privatizing the postal service, Steiner has told USPS employees that he does not believe in fundamentally changing the agency’s structure or mission.
