The U.S. Postal Service has announced it will stop delivering mail on Saturdays to cut costs. Packages will still be delivered six days a week.

Congressman Sam Graves says he does not support the cutbacks.

“The USPS does need reform, however, reducing core services is not a long-term plan,” he says. “I worry that reducing services will lead to other reductions like closing rural post offices.”

Graves says there is still a large group of people — particularly in rural areas — whose lifeline to the outside world is the Postal Service.

“Whether it’s their social security check, an important document or even just a card from a loved one,” he said in a prepared statement. “I’ve introduced a sense of Congress, asking the postal service to keep mail delivery at 6 days a week.”

U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill says House Republicans have turned their backs on rural Americans.

“We won a hard-fought battle in the Senate last year with strongly bipartisan postal reform that would have put the Postal Service on the path to sound financial footing, protected rural post offices, and provided strict criteria for the Postal Service to meet before eliminating six-day delivery,” she says. “Unfortunately, instead of passing the bill, the Republicans in the U.S. House abandoned rural America and allowed the legislation to die. And this is the result of their inaction — an unnecessary loss for business, rural families and the principle of compromise.”

A press release from McCaskill’s office says the Senator successfully fought last year to keep hundreds of rural post offices in Missouri open and operating — arguing that shutting down rural post offices would not help the Postal Service achieve substantial cost-savings.

McCaskill says she recently wrote to Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe requesting a more thorough and up-to-date financial analysis of five-day delivery financial projections.