Even the Small Ideas Get an Airing

Nancy Bacon had just what the economy needed, and she wanted Vice President Dick Cheney to see it.

“Solar cells,” she said, holding up one of the panels made by her company, Energy Conversion Devices of Troy, Mich. “I’d like to have the administration think about using U.S. technology in some of their programs.”

Curtis McGuire, owner of a Columbus, Ohio, trash hauling firm called RedLeg’s Lumper Service, told President Bush that health insurance purchasing pools would help small businesses like his.

Linda Aerni, chief executive of Community Internet Systems in Columbus, Neb., said affordable broadband access for rural America would make a big difference.

One after another, participants in the president’s economic forum here offered their ideas Tuesday for making America--or at least their little piece of it--more prosperous and productive.

Most of their suggestions had little to do with revving up the U.S. economy in the short term, to ensure that last year’s recessionary slump doesn’t become this year’s double dip. But they were music to the ears of the Bush administration.

Although some of the 240 conference participants deviated from the party line, most seemed inclined to build on existing policies and programs designed to enhance America’s long-term economic security.

UPS driver Robert London of Waco said more international trade agreements would mean more parcels for him to pick up and deliver.

Discount broker Charles Schwab suggested bigger tax deductions for stock losses and higher contribution limits for IRA and 401(k) accounts.

Georgia Institute of Technology President Wayne Clough called for more research and development affiliations between business and academia.

For many participants, the answer was not more of anything, but less.

Kathy Gornik, president of Theil Audio Products of Lexington, Ky., asked administration officials and conference participants to keep in mind that a dollar taxed and spent by Washington on research and development is a dollar removed from the private sector.

“The message I want to leave with you is, whatever money you can leave with me, that is a good thing,” she said.

George Dobbins, president of Southern Communications Systems of Memphis, Tenn., was one of the few participants who dared to ask what any of this had to do with averting another recession or propping up the stock market.

“What I’d like to know is, what is our short-range plan?” Dobbins asked. “What can we do to get the economy going now? ... What can we do about confidence?”

He didn’t get much of an answer.