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CNN Live Today

Bush Bringing Together Blue-Chip Execs, Blue-Collar Joes For Talk About Economy

Aired August 13, 2002 - 11:11   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: President Bush is bringing together blue-chip execs and blue-collar Joes for a coffee talk about the economy this morning.
Our White House correspondent Suzanne Malveaux joins us from the forum at Baylor University in Waco, Texas with a bunch of heavy hitters.

Suzanne, good morning.

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Daryn.

The president is in his last panel discussion. This forum is well under way now. This is really the administration's opportunity to show that the president is engaged with the American concerns about the volatile stock market, as well as the sluggish economy. There are more than 240 participants, including not only the president, the vice president and eight cabinet members, but literally a whose who of CEOs of top corporations, as well as we are told ordinary Americans, housewives and truckers, all types of folks. This is really an opportunity the administration wants to connect with the American people.

Now the first panel discussion was entitled "Small Investors and Retirement Security." That was the focus. Mr. Bush sat beside investment giant Charles Schwab. This is a man who has contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to Republican candidates. Mr. Bush's message in that panel discussion was the need to bring investors back to the markets.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Confidence is more than just government enforcing law. Confidence is an industry policing itself, as well as understanding the new customer. And I would be curious -- first of all I love your ideas about how to account for loss and/or double taxation dividends. That makes a lot of sense. Another question for the panelists and look forward to hearing the recommendations, is how do we take care of the new investor?

Chuck does a good job of it by recruiting them and then helping them invest. But throughout the system, how do we understand that the nature of the investor has changed?

(END VIDEO CLIP) MALVEAUX: The president also emphasized some other aspects of the economic agenda, including the need to repeal the death tax, a strengthen of Securities & Exchange Commission, and keeping those tax cuts permanent.

This afternoon, Daryn, he will be making an announcement at the plenary session. He is going to be saying that he will rejecting $5.1 billion that Congress approved for spending. This is part of a supplemental bill for homeland security and Pentagon spending, $28.9 billion. Aides say the reason he makes the announcement, that he is doing this, is that the Office of Management and Budget has discovered some other unspent funds, some 14 billion dollars, but also to say to deliver a message to members of Congress, that they have to exercise really fiscal discipline and responsibility, that there's a $165 billion deficit that the country is now phasing.

The president showing that he is getting tough, that he is doing things to change this economy around -- Daryn.

KAGAN: Suzanne Malveaux in Waco, Texas, thank you so much.

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