Burns: Odds for Controls Up
The Û÷nation may face mandatory wage-price controls if inflation continues at the present rate for another six months, former Federal Reserve Board chairman Arthur F. Burns said yesterday.</br></br>Burns, now a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute here, made clear that he was not advocating controls. He added that President Carter has ÛÏwisely" rejected mandatory controls.</br></br>But he said ÛÏthe administration may be driven in that direction" by an inability to achieve further fiscal restraint, and the political difficulty of getting certain ÛÏstructural reformsÛ such as a redaction in minimum wages, and subsidies to farmers.</br></br>ÛÏThey then would be left with monetary policy or mandatory controls,Û Burns said, ÛÏand there is concern in the business world that mandatory controls might come along.Û</br></br>Burns, former Nixon Economic Council Chairman Herbert Stein and other AEI scholars talked to reporters at a press conference yesterday at AEI headquarters.