President Plans Forum on Key Economic Initiatives

The conference, set for Dec. 15 and 16, is modeled after one that Bush called in Waco, Texas, in the summer of 2002 as the nation was struggling to recover from a recession.

Widely regarded at the time as a public relations effort, the meeting nevertheless helped set the stage for one of Bush's across-the-board tax cuts. That initiative included a tax reduction on dividends, an idea that Wall Street discount broker Charles Schwab had promoted during the Texas forum.

Plans this time call for the president, Vice President Dick Cheney and some Cabinet officials -- along with experts from outside government -- to lead as many as six panel discussions, White House press secretary Scott McClellan said. Healthcare, education, budget discipline and legal reform also will be addressed, he said.

"The conference will be an opportunity to discuss what we must do to keep our economy growing and to make sure America remains the most competitive economy in the world," McClellan said.

He did not dispute the notion that the two-day session was, at least in part, an effort to build and shape public opinion for Bush's economic agenda.

But economist Bruce Bartlett, a former Treasury Department official in the first Bush administration, said the forum appeared to be more an exercise in public outreach than an effort to rethink economic policy. Still, such a conference could prove beneficial, he said.

"The main virtue of this kind of event is that it forces the president to focus intently on economic issues, at least for a couple of days, to the exclusion of everything else that intrudes upon his time," Bartlett said. "So I don't think it's a complete waste of time."

During the president's first term, his economic team has assumed a relatively low profile amid the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

But Bush is seeking to reshape the tax code and to allow workers to divert a portion of their Social Security taxes into private accounts, he is in the process of replacing a majority of his top economic advisors.