Byron Dorgan: “I thought I had seen some fairly unusual and Byzantine proposals around this town, but one that was described in last…”

“I thought I had seen some fairly unusual and Byzantine proposals around this town, but one that was described in last Friday's Washington Post almost takes the cake. Going back some years, there was a proposal by the U.S. Post Office that would allow people to file change of address forms in the event of a nuclear war. I thought that was rather bizarre. One can imagine being under nuclear attack and trying to find the road to the post office to leave a forwarding address. That is not very likely. There is a proposal even goofier than that. On Friday, May 12, John Berry, a Washington Post staff writer-- someone for whom I have respect and he is an excellent writer and thinker--wrote an article about ``Rate Forecasts Climbing.'' He was talking about interest rates. John describes the thinking of some members of the Federal Reserve Board and the Open Market Committee about what they intend to do with interest rates. I wish that this story, however, included an analysis of opposing views and there are some. Here is the situation: Tomorrow morning at 9:30, there will be a meeting in this town of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors and regional Fed bank presidents--five of them--who will make decisions about interest rates. The speculation is they will increase interest rates by one-half of 1 percent despite the fact there is no evidence of inflation that suggests they should do this. It is the same as deciding they are going to tax the American people.…”