August Consumer Price Index White House Statement.

Once again, the increased cost of energy was the major factor in an unacceptably high inflation rate during the month of August, and once again, this fact underscores the importance of following through on the President's energy and anti-inflation programs. In fact, the cost of energy and the cost of buying and financing a home were exclusively responsible for pushing the Consumer Price Index into a double-digit annual rate.

We were, of course, gratified that grocery prices remained stable during the month. And outside of food and the troublesome areas of energy and housing, other consumer prices rose at a much lower, though still too high, annual rate of 8.5 percent.

For the second time in 6 years, our Nation is suffering severely from both higher inflation and higher unemployment because of a sudden and massive increase in world oil prices. The need to reduce our dependence on foreign oil is driven home each time the CPI comes out.

We simply cannot allow the huge increases in the prices of energy and housing to set off double-digit inflation in wages and other prices. To prevent that from happening, we need restraint on two fronts:

1. continuing to pursue a tight Federal budget as the President has proposed, and

2. observing the President's voluntary wage-price standards, which, skeptics to the contrary, have been keeping double-digit inflation at bay, outside of energy and housing.