Rain, sleet, and snow may not stop the U.S. Postal Service from making deliveries. But bankruptcy just might.

Stories about the dire state of the Postal Service are so common that one could be forgiven for wanting to turn the page wondering, what else is new? The reasons behind the agency’s dire financial straits are well-known: e-mails have almost universally replaced letters, it is strapped with huge labor costs, and it is forced to make deliveries to every corner of the country, to name a few. But now the situation is so dire that the postmaster general is practically waving his hands in the air, warning about a doomsday scenario from the front page of the New York Times.

“Our situation is extremely serious,” the postmaster general, Patrick R. Donahoe, said. “If Congress doesn’t act, we will default.” On Thursday Republican Rep. Darrell Issa launched SavingthePostalService.com to detail the problems facing the agency and literally count down to the agency’s default.