Political Quotes

“Mr. President, on Sunday, the President appeared on ``60 minutes,'' where he was asked what he was going to do to help alleviate inflation in light of August's continued grim inflation news and the resulting stock market nosedive. The President's response? Well, first of all, let's put this in perspective. Inflation rate month to month was just--just an inch, hardly at all. ``Let's put this in perspective''? That might be something to say if the inflation rate had ticked up from, say, 2 percent--the target inflation rate--to 2.1 percent, but I am pretty sure that that is not the appropriate thing to say when you are talking about the sixth straight month of inflation above 8 percent and the ninth straight month of inflation at or above 7 percent and the 11th straight month of inflation above 6 percent. Even more concerning than August's consumer price index rising 8.3 percent from the same month a year ago was the increase in core inflation--a measure of inflation minus the volatile categories of food and energy. This measure increased to 6.3 percent in August, up from 5.9 percent in both June and July, suggesting that inflation is sinking its roots even deeper into various sectors of our economy--or in the words of a CNBC headline from last week: Inflation isn't just about fuel costs anymore, as price increases broaden across the economy. But, of course, you don't have to take my word for it about the mess that we are in.…”