WASHINGTON (AP) — With big postal cuts looming, the Senate is deciding whether to stabilize the ailing U.S. Postal Service with a short-term cash infusion while delaying most decisions on closing post offices and ending Saturday mail delivery by requiring further review.

The mail agency, teetering on the brink of bankruptcy, says it needs to begin closing thousands of low-revenue post offices and mail processing centers this year as part of a billion-dollar cost-cutting effort to become profitable again by 2015. But local communities are fretting about the economic impact and tens of thousands of layoffs, drawing the concerns of lawmakers in an election year.

Late last year, Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe agreed to delay closings until May 15 so that Congress would have time to pass legislation to shore up the agency's finances.

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