Bush, Black Caucus In Rare Meeting

President Bush held a long awaited meeting Wednesday with the Congressional Black Caucus, the all-Democratic group that has had a strained relationship with the White House over the last four years.

The 43-member caucus presented Mr. Bush with its eight-page agenda during a private meeting. The new chairman of the caucus, Rep. Mel Watt, D-N.C., said the president agreed to read the agenda and take it under advisement but didn't offer much response to it.

The agenda asks for more spending on education for poor and minority students, health care for all Americans, promotion of affirmative action, aid to impoverished African and Caribbean nations, and a guarantee that Social Security benefits continue to be paid, among other requests.

Some members told the president they were concerned that a prominent Republican lawmaker had suggested adjusting benefits based on gender and race to take into account differing average life spans.

Mr. Bush did not respond directly, said Rep. Charlie Rangel, D-N.Y., but told the lawmakers he plans to give more details of his plan in the State of the Union address.

Eleanor Holmes-Norton, the District of Columbia's nonvoting delegate to Congress, said Mr. Bush said he would meet again with the caucus. "But he said that last time," she said.

Mr. Bush has met three times with the caucus since taking office four years ago. The first meeting came shortly after his inauguration, when the president said it would "be the beginning of, hopefully, a lot of meetings."

But the next one didn't come until three years later when members of the caucus showed up at the White House to pressure the administration to preserve President Jean-Bertrand Aristide's rule in Haiti.

Wednesday's session was the president's second meeting in two days with black leaders, part of an effort to reach out to a community that voted overwhelmingly against his re-election.

On Tuesday, Mr. Bush met with 14 clergy and 10 leaders from business and nonprofit groups.

Exit polls showed that Mr. Bush received just 11 percent of the black vote in November's election, a slight increase over the 9 percent he received four years earlier.