Facing a $238 billion budget deficit by 2020, the U.S. Postal Service filed a proposal to Congress recommending they be allowed to cut their Saturday service.

According to MSNBC.com, the financially strapped agency believes that one less day of service will save them billions. Their projected savings would be $3.3 billion in the first year from eliminating deliveries on one day, and $5.1 billion a year by 2020.

“Given the fact that we’re facing such a huge deficit, we’d like to move as quickly as possible,” Postmaster General John Potter told reporters today in Washington.

As part of cutting a day of service, the agency will eliminate the equivalent of 40,000 full-time jobs. They believe it will also help to bring some order to the process as mail volumes erode because customers have switched to electronic communication.

They propose to keep local offices open on Saturdays and continue processing and transporting mail during the weekends after dropping deliveries to homes and businesses.

The Postal Service will file its five-day delivery proposal with the Postal Regulatory Commission in Washington tomorrow. It is also seeking permission from the U.S. Congress, which requires delivery to all U.S. addresses six days a week.

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