House Republicans Back End To Doorside Mail Service

The days of reaching from the front door to the mailbox could be numbered if a new congressional plan to save the Postal Service goes ahead.

The proposal, approved by a House committee, would end door-to-door delivery by 2022. Instead, postal carriers would limit their deliveries to curbside – meaning boxes at the end of driveways — or to cluster boxes, a staple of many apartment complexes. The plan, which passed on a straight party-line vote of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, is part of broader legislation sponsored by the committee's chairman, California Republican Darrell Issa. It aims to cut up to $4.5 billion a year from the budget of the Postal Service, which lost $16 billion last year. Proponents still have to deliver the votes in the full House as well as the Democratic-controlled Senate if the plan, which would also eliminate Saturday delivery and remove no-layoff clauses from future union contracts, is to go ahead.