Blaine

Thursday Outlook: The Inflation Con Game

Sorry, the date on the NY Times article was February 22, 1995 - not 2008. It was written by Kenneth N. Gilpin.

Thursday Outlook: The Inflation Con Game

It is a completely false assertion that "Clinton and Company" changed the way inflation was calculated. It was factually Alan Greenspan and a grateful Republican Congress who created a shell game to slash $150 million form the Federal Deficit over five years. Greenspan suggested the change in 1995 as a way to trim cost of living adjustments to Social Security beneficiaries, other recipients of Federal benefit programs and retired Government workers.

According to the NY Times, “Mr. Greenspan's proposal was greeted enthusiastically by Republicans on Capitol Hill. He appeared to offer a way out of one of their biggest quandaries: how to cut spending on Federal entitlement programs without a specific vote that would clearly tamper with politically sacrosanct Social Security benefits. It would also allow Congress to increase tax revenues at a faster rate without requiring a political death wish: a vote to increase income taxes. …Indeed, House Speaker Newt Gingrich went so far as to threaten to withhold financing from the Bureau of Labor Statistics -- responsible for compiling the monthly consumer price report since 1919 -- unless it changed its approach. (NY Times, Feb. 22, 2008)
Truthfully, it was Speaker Gingrich and the 1990’s Republican Congress who were responsible. Does David Fry intentionally misrepresent the facts or is he just uninformed? Those who would undertake journalism at the very least have an obligation for the truth; and hyperbolic slander has no place in legitimate publications, even if they are online. One should only hope that Mr. Fry is not as cavalier with his investing advice as he is with the truth.