1. The National Finance Section announced today that it is lowering the______on savings bonds. 2. The______point decline to 6 %

Part One
    The National Finance Section announced today that it is lowering the guaranteed interest rate on savings bonds. ABS’s Micheal Lee reports that the 2/3 point decline to 6% came as no surprise to investors. The Section said it is lowering the rate on savings bonds to bring it in line with other market interest rates which have been falling all year. For instance, money market mutual funds are now yielding just over 5 % ; five-year treasury notes are trading at about 6.5 % . So the government has been paying a premium to people buying savings bonds, and it’s turned out to be an expensive way to finance the public debt .The relatively generous 7.5% rate on the bonds has made them very popular in the past few months. Since the beginning of August, sales have been about double the usual pace. And this week, the rush to buy savings bonds intensified because of reports that the Section was going to cut the rate any day, and people wanted to lock in the old rate. Savings bonds bought before tomorrow, the day the cut goes into effect, will still yield 7.5 % . I’m Micheal Lee in Washington. DC.