GOP Finds a Program to Favor: Research That Could Lower CPI
Republican congressional leaders put aside the budget knife and asked the Bureau of Labor Statistics Friday whether the agency needs more money to speed research to revise the consumer price index.</br></br>The CPI revision could make it easier to balance the federal budget by 2002. Many analysts, including those at BLS, say the CPIÛªs current configuration overstates inflation, thus artificially ballooning projected budget deficits.</br></br>As part of the drive to cut spending this year, the House cut BLS's requested 1996 appropriation by $30 million, to $347 million. ThatÛªs $5 million less than the agency spent last year. The full Senate has not passed its version of the bill but the Senate Appropriations Committee</br></br>BLS Commissioner Katharine G. Abraham warned in a letter yesterday, responding to the leaders, that "overall BLS budget reductions of the size now being considered could well force significant delays in the revision schedule and lead to deferral of other valuable research, efforts.Û The same thing could happen if BLS had to work under a continuing resolution, as opposed to an actual appropriation, if funding is "at any level significantly below that requested for the Bureau," she said.</br></br>The CPI is used to determine cost-of-living adjustments in many federal benefit programs, including Social Security, and to index some provisions of the tax code, such as the size of the personal exemption. The Congressional See CPI, C6, CoL 1