Postage Rates Decreasing? April Fools!

As noted in my previous article about Trumpazines, I like to celebrate April Fools Day with Onion-esque fake news stories that touch the funny bone and hit close to home. I half-expect the following article to be true because the reality of reduced postal rates is stranger than fiction: 

USPS wants to hang on to the cash

That imminent decrease in the price of Forever Stamps and other postage? Fuhgeddaboutit. It was just a joke.

“You really thought we were going to reduce the cost of mailing? April Fools,” laughed Ben Dover, the U.S. Postal Service’s Vice President of Pricing and Pencil Pushing, at a meeting of clearly not amused mailing industry representatives today.

Previous USPS announcements said the cuts would take effect on April 10, when the Postal Service’s “exigent” surcharge expires. ("See Hell Will Freeze Over on April 10.")

“Get it? April 10. That’s April One Zero: April One is of course April Fools Day, and Zero is the chance we’ll ever reduce postage rates unless someone holds a gun to our heads,” Dover told the Mailers' Tactical Air Command (MTAC).

They're such jokers!
“We should have known not to believe them,” grumbled Gino Del Potato, president of the Amalgamated Association of Stamp Lickers and Junk Mailers. “After all, the people who announced the price changes are the same ones who told us the FSS machines would save the Postal Service big bucks. Even when they’re trying to be serious, half of what they say is a joke."

Dover’s announcement came just in time for Phil LaTelly of Bugtussle, Oklahoma, who was about to file for personal bankruptcy when he heard the news. LaTelly, who invested his substantial life savings in the Forever Stamp futures market three years ago, would have been wiped out by the rate decrease.

“Whew, that news came just in the lick of time,” a relieved LaTelly told reporters on the courthouse steps.

Postal officials have been arguing for years that the surcharge should be made permanent because, gee, who knew that Del Potato's predictions about email and all that Internet stuff reducing mail volumes would actually come true? Their cause seemed hopeless after they lost a court battle, then the appeal, then an attempt to get the Postal Regulatory Commission to reinterpret the appeals court decision, then an appeal of the PRC decision not to reinterpret the court, and finally an appeal to the PRC of the appeals court’s decision.

But despite the courts’ rulings, the three-person Not-So-Temporary Emergency Junta that has governed the Postal Service for more than a year recently concluded that only the full USPS Board of Governors has the authority to decrease rates. There won’t be a full Board until Congress gets around to filling eight vacancies on the 11-person body. Which basically means the exigent surcharge is permanent.

Besides, the two USPS employees on the junta can’t vote for a price decrease without violating the sacred vow taken by all postal executives, “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night shall stay us from raising postage rates as much as we can.”