Bush: Economy's 'Coming Back'

After failing to calm Wall Street last week about the struggling economy, President Bush took his case to Main Street on Monday, reports CBS News Correspondent Peter Maer.

Speaking to a business audience in Alabama as the stock market continued its latest slide, Mr. Bush said America's economy is "coming back." The president cited strong first-quarter growth, low inflation and rising productivity as reasons American investors should be confident.

But as Mr. Bush spoke at the University of Alabama Birmingham campus, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was off on another dramatic roller-coaster ride, losing more than 400 points in the afternoon before rebounding to close just 46 points down. That comes after a frantic week in which the Dow dropped nearly 700 points.

Following up on last week's address to business leaders in New York, the president again called for corporate responsibility, saying he expected "the highest ethical standards in corporate America."

"In order to be a responsible American, you must behave responsibly," said Mr. Bush

He insisted the economy's fundamentals were strong, but pointed to problems that he contends started before he took office.

"We must get rid of the hangover from the economic binge we went through. There was endless profit like there was no tomorrow," Mr. Bush said.

The president also blamed the economic slump on last year's terror attacks, but said he believes the economy is "coming back."

He urged Congress to get legislation designed to combat corporate fraud on his desk before it adjourns for the summer recess.

The Senate was expected to pass its version of the bill later Monday; the House already has acted on a measure widely considered to be weaker because it does not contain penalties for corporate fraud. Differences between the two measures would have to be resolved before a compromise bill could be sent to Mr. Bush.

Mr. Bush has been dogged in recent weeks by a decade-old Securities and Exchange Commission investigation into his sale of stock in his former oil company, Harken Energy Corp. And Vice President Dick Cheney's former company, Halliburton Co., is being investigated by the SEC for its accounting practices.

Over the weekend, Democrats renewed their calls for the president to released documents relating to his 1990 sale of Harken stock.

Maryland Democrat Paul Sarbanes, chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, told NBC's "Today" show that "the president ought to lay out all the facts and let the country take a look at them."

He said that way, what he calls the "constant agitation" over the case could be put to rest. Mr. Bush sold his Harken stock for $848,000 in June 1990, two months before Harken reported big losses. Mr. Bush was a director of the company. The government's insider-trading inquiry into the sale, made when Mr. Bush's father was president, was closed with no action against Mr. Bush.

But White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said Monday the administration doesn't intend to ask the Securities and Exchange Commission to release papers from its investigation into Mr. Bush's sales of Harken stock.

As for calls for SEC Chairman Harvey Pitt to resign in the wake of the corporate scandals, Fleischer said Mr. Bush "stands by his team.''

Pitt also made it clear that he was no intention of stepping aide.

"I'm the right person for the job," said Pitt, appointed by Mr. Bush last year as the top market watchdog. "This guilt by occupation is really a needless diversion."

Mr. Bush's speech in Alabama came six days after he outlined proposals to crack down on the accounting scandals. The proposals – which partly relied on self-policing – did little to restore confidence and some investors questioned whether his tough talk would be matched by tough action.

The stock market last week suffered its worst one-week drop since the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington, with the S&P 500 index and the Nasdaq Composite Index hitting their lowest levels since 1997 last Wednesday.