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Well before then, the President will face a major political dilemma. An unusually large number of unions and employers will be negotiating new contracts, including pacts covering the rubber, electrical, trucking and auto industries. Union chiefs will use such reverses as an excuse for big settlements. Referring to the February cost of living index, Paul Jennings, president of the International Union of Electrical Workers, said: "I look at the daily newspapers and I feel less and less constrained." The danger facing Nixon is that food prices may plant an inflationary time bomb in union contracts, which will last for two or three years.
Balloon. The reason for relentless food price increases, as Agriculture Secretary Earl Butz never tires of telling, is supply and demand. What he fails to add is that the short supplies are partly of the Administration's own making, thanks to an election-year agricultural policy deliberately rigged to pump up farm income by keeping production scarce and prices high. The policy succeeded admirably: last year farmers' net income rose by no less than 19%, and farmers voted overwhelmingly for Nixon. As Butz admits, he is "a political Secretary of Agriculture."
Consumers are about to try and show that they, too, have clout in the marketplace—by staying away from it. All next week a group called FIT (Fight Inflation Together), which was founded a month ago by three Los Angeles women and now claims affiliates in 46 states, will sponsor a nationwide boycott of meat. Their slogan: "Deplete Meat Until Prices We Beat." Says June Donavan, an FIT founder: "We have exposed the nerves of a lot of people. The group is expanding like a balloon." In Atlanta, New York, Seattle and other cities, dozens of housewives' groups are picketing supermarkets, distributing meatless recipes and organizing local meat boycotts.
No Holds. Less politically explosive than food prices but still worrisome was the price climb of other consumer goods in February—up by .5%, the largest such increase since last May. The list was headed by heating oil, gasoline and other fuels, which like food are in short supply and thus economically dear. Landlords who took advantage of Phase Ill's total lack of rent rules sent the cost of services up by .4% during the month. The Senate sought to outlaw any rent gouging by tacking on an amendment to the bill extending until mid-1974 the President's authority to enforce wage-price controls. The amendment limits many urban rent increases to 2½% annually. That provision, which Nixon opposes, might be removed by the House—but last week's inflationary burst may inspire Congressmen to add some of their own rules.