Since 2010, the U.S. Postal Service has cut 35 percent of its staff, reduced hours and entirely closed some offices, consolidated more than 200 mail processing locations and has raised the price of first-class stamps to 46 cents. Finally breaking a 100- year tradition, the Postal Service is getting rid of Saturday mail delivery to save $2.7 billion per year in spending costs to keep the lights on and the mail going at the Post Office.

“Our financial condition is urgent,” said Patrick R. Donahoe, postmaster general.

Although ending Saturday letter delivery is estimated to save about $2 billion from a $15.9 billion loss in 2012, the post office will still be spending around $40 million a day on services.

In 2006, Congress passed a statute requiring the early payment of 75 years worth of retiree benefits within 10 years.

It has already defaulted on two of its obligations last year despite paying $1.4 trillion towards those benefits. The U.S. Postal Service has attempted to revise or end the 2006 mandate, a requirement that is imposed on no other government agency.

Let us just call it “Congressional ignorance” that has prompted Donahoe to publicly defy Congress into action because without asking permission, he decided to nix the Saturday delivery system by forcing flexibility onto a rigid and stubborn establishment that has long mismanaged the finances of an essential government establishment, among other things.

“We urgently need Congress to do its part and pass legislation that allows us to better manage our costs and give us the commercial flexibility needed to operate more like a business does,” said Donahoe.

A majority of Americans agree. Postal Service market research indicates that nearly 7 out of 10 people support the post office’s switch to a five-day delivery system, or maybe they just do not care.

The U.S. Postal Service is an essential piece of both American history and of the larger U.S. enterprise. It is a $1 trillion mailing industry that employs more than 8 million individuals, not only as letter carriers, but also in services such as printing, publishing, manufacturing and other fields that contribute to the greater fabric of our economy.

“A healthy Postal Service is not just important to postal customers, but also to our national economy,” said Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine.

Although services for packages will not be cancelled on Saturdays, the cuts in service will be affecting people other than the ones that shop online as a second profession. Service cuts and efforts to sever limbs on the greater body of the mailing industry will affect workers too – individuals who cannot afford to lose their jobs, have been employed for years and employees whose names we know and faces we often cannot wait to see.

Congress is playing with their futures, too.

So how much reckless damage are we willing to inflict in order to face real and long-term change before the lights go out on the U.S. Postal Service?