A discussion of Americans' skepticism about the government's ability to keep inflation in check, emphasizing the real economic costs of this attitude entails and the ways in which Congress, the Federal Reserve, and the White House can help.

An argument that the central bank should adopt a policy of price stability based on an explicit objective for the Consumer Price Index, which the Cleveland Fed President believes would provide a nominal anchor for the dollar as well as a clear standard by which to measure the success of monetary...