Bush Plans ‘Outsider’ Economic Forum

President Bush will summon Cabinet members, corporate chiefs, union officials and others to a mid-August meeting in Texas on the economy, part of an effort to spotlight his focus on the issue during his vacation.

The unusual meeting, which the White House announced Friday, will occur during what is normally a lull in government business. It will put Bush at the center of the debate over the economy while Congress is in recess--and set a course for his defense of his economic and domestic policies leading up to the congressional elections in November.

“What the president hopes to get out of it is to be able to hear from the American people from a variety of walks of life, from a variety of backgrounds, whether they are union workers or whether they are business executives,” White House aide Ari Fleischer said.

Bush also plans trips to 12 cities during his 25-day break from the nation’s capital to emphasize his message that the nation’s economy is fundamentally sound despite the recent decline of the stock market.

The meeting will take place Aug. 13, the day before the government’s deadline for corporate chiefs to certify the accuracy of their corporations’ reports, or to revise already disclosed financial reports.

The White House plans to open the meeting to news coverage. Such a public display of concern about the economy worked well for Bill Clinton during the presidential transition after the 1992 election. Clinton had just unseated Bush’s father, in large part because of public worries about the economy.

Before he was inaugurated, Clinton held an “economic summit” to establish that his top priority was pulling the nation out of a recession. It turned out, when economic figures were released later, that an economic turnaround had already begun.

Unlike Clinton, Bush is not planning to invite members of Congress--Republican or Democrat--to his conference. Fleischer insisted that the meeting would be an “economic forum,” not a “summit.”

House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.) has urged Bush since January to hold an economic conference much like Clinton’s. His office on Friday questioned the effectiveness of Bush’s gathering.

“While I’m sure it’s going to be a nice meeting, the idea was to have a broad economic summit where we could hear from Democratic and Republican lawmakers and economists,” said Kori Bernards, a Gephardt aide. “We need a serious summit, not a press event, if we’re going to get the nation’s economic house in order.”

Fleischer said the meeting, which he equated to round-table discussions Bush held in Austin while he was president-elect, would include roughly half the Cabinet, other government policymakers and a diverse group that would include “small investors, small business owners, industry experts, workers, business ethicists, union members, corporate executives, economists, business students and others.”

He said they would be asked “to discuss the fundamentals in the American economy and to talk about the president’s agenda to increase growth for the future.”

With the House starting its summer break today and the Senate taking its recess after one more week, administration officials on Friday tried to accentuate what they saw as several positive developments.

The stock market’s gyrations have caused anxiety among White House officials about voter attitudes toward Bush and the GOP, but the downward slide of previous weeks began to slow at week’s end.

On Thursday, Congress passed--by overwhelming margins--a corporate reform bill that backers hope will help restore investor confidence in the stock market. Bush may use the signing ceremony for the bill to tout its potential effect.

Also at week’s end, Congress made progress on some of Bush’s legislative priorities, including a bill that would strengthen his hand in reaching trade pacts.

“It’s been an amazing week. A lot has gotten done here in the Congress,” the president said after going to Capitol Hill for a brief meeting with House Republicans. “I’m real proud of the members of both parties.”

With the market’s volatility, White House officials have shown even more sensitivity than usual toward how Bush is being portrayed by the media, particularly regarding his role in the economy.

As the Dow Jones industrial average was soaring by nearly 500 points on Wednesday, one senior White House official began a conversation with a reporter by asking whether Bush would get credit for the good news to match what the aide thought was the blame directed at the administration when the market was falling.