Appearing at a campaign rally outside Pittsburgh, Clinton promoted the bonds, which guarantee an interest rate above the rate of inflation, as a new and safe way for people to save for college, retirement or buying a home.
Inflation protection bonds can be a solid rock upon which families build their futures and their dreams, Clinton told a cheering audience at the Robert Morris College. Not a penny of value will ever be lost to anyone who buys them because of inflation.
The bonds, which will first be issued in January, will have a maturity of 10 years and be designed to pay investors an interest rate above the consumer price index, one of the most common measures of inflation.
Regular treasury bonds offer no such guarantee, so that as inflation rises the fixed interest that they pay loses its value. The treasury department has long studied issuing such securities, which are also used by Britain and Canada, and announced on May 16 that it intended to do so as an experiment. It said then that they would be sold in amounts as low as $1,000, putting them within the reach of average Americans.
The White House said on Wednesday that by January 1998 the treasury would also start issuing inflation-protected savings bonds in amounts as low as $50, which would make them available to small savers.
It also said the administration will propose legislation to eliminate the minimum-age requirement of 24 years for purchasers of education savings bonds and to widen those educational institutions that qualify for using tax-exempt savings bonds.
How the complicated world of US treasury bond issues entered the hurlyburly of a US presidential election was a case study in the powers of incumbency.
Knowing that the bonds were under study, Clinton was using them to enliven a virtual="/incs/bottom.inc"-->
