2 O.C. Business Leaders Praise Clinton, Conference

Calling President-elect Bill Clinton’s economic conference a historic event, two Orange County Republican business leaders who attended the meeting expressed optimism that Clinton is ready to fix the ailing national economy.

“It was an extraordinary event,” said Western Digital Corp. Chairman Roger Johnson. “It was historic; it went down as an economic Woodstock.”

Developer Kathryn G. Thompson credited Clinton with engaging discussion on the issues presented by the more than 300 attendees. The issues ranged from health care to whether the federal government should spend more to make the economy grow and to finer points of government spending.

“He was grasping everything and was often two steps ahead of everyone,” Thompson said from Little Rock. She expressed confidence that Clinton “will be able to break the gridlock.”

Johnson and Thompson--both early supporters of Clinton’s presidential campaign--each gave their suggestions on how to improve the economy during the two-day, nationally televised conference.

And both promised to follow Clinton’s request to participants of the seminars: to send two- to three-page summaries of what steps should next be taken.

“I have already started a position paper,” Thompson said. “It’s going to be a paper in detail explaining how action can be taken to implement shelter programs,” she said. Thompson is advocating that private-public partnerships pay for shelters, such as prisons and halfway houses. Earlier this year, she made a similar recommendation to the Orange County Board of Supervisors, which has been struggling with jail overcrowding.

Taking Clinton’s lead for a closer look at government spending, Johnson said he would suggest that the federal government not rush to fully fund major capital projects in one budget year.

“They are one-time expenditures, and then they are forgotten,” Johnson said, adding that by slowing down appropriations, budget planners would be forced to reassess the benefits of the project.

Johnson said that he, too, was impressed that Clinton “didn’t come in and say ‘Hi, see you at lunch.’ He didn’t eat lunch today.”