Politics

Pumping Up The Economy

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

December 4, 2001 / 2:44 PM EST / CBS

Microphone in hand, President Bush took the stage of a town hall meeting Tuesday and expressed sympathy with workers and business owners struggling in a sagging economy.

"There's nothing that hurts me more than to know, as we head for the holiday season, that some of our citizens and some of their families hurt because they've been laid off as a result of" the Sept. 11 suicide hijackings over Washington, New York and Pennsylvania.

Tourism, a key industry in this area, has been hard hit by the attacks.

In the first town hall meeting of his presidency, Mr. Bush strolled the stage and called for questions from a crowd of several hundred displaced workers and business owners.

One of them complained that his company's request for a Small Business Administration loan had gotten lost in red tape. Mr. Bush's response was blunt.

"First, get in your car and find out why your case is bogged down in bureaucracy," Mr. Bush said. He got serious later, sending an aide to the man's side to find out more information about the case.

Mr. Bush touched on the war in Afghanistan and the fighting in the Middle East, but most of the questions involved the economy.

He pledged to makes planes safer, which would help the tourism industry, and demanded action from Congress on an economic stimulus package.

During the town meeting that had the feel of a campaign rally, Mr. Bush put the blame on Congress, reports CBS News Correspondent Mark Knoller.

"I urge the United States Congress to stop talking and to get an economic stimulus bill to my desk," he said.

But some Democrats oppose the Bush plan charging it would provide too much in tax breaks to big business.

He brushed aside a question about giving tax incentives to people who travel. "That hasn't made it to my radar screen yet," Mr. Bush said.

Mr. Bush was looking to coax Americans back onto planes and trains during his fifth visit as president to Florida, which decided the presidency a year ago. The last time Mr. Bush visited the state, he was addressing a classroom full of students when he learned that jetliners had struck the World Trade Center.

The visit Tuesday came one day after his homeland security chief issued a new terrorism alert.

The president met with laid-off workers in Orlando, home of Walt Disney World, and pushed his proposal to spend $3 billion to help them get by financially, maintain their health insurance and train for new work. His brother Gov. Jeb Bush, welcomed him to the state with a handshake and a hug.

Among those at the job center was William Richards of Sanford, Fla., a graphic artist who has seen his work dry up at the Disney and Universal Studios theme parks.

Richards said he would prefer the kind of subsidies for enhanced health insurance that Democrats envision over more grants for job centers like the one he was sitting in.

Labor Secretary Elaine Chao told reporters aboard Air Force One that Mr. Bush's $3 billion expansion include $3.4 million to help some 2,000 unemployed workers in the Orlando area, partly through centers like the one Mr. Bush visited. Jeb Bush said he had asked his brother's administration for $35 million.

While President Bush was boosting Florida, District of Columbia officials were coping with a sharp drop in tourism caused partly by the federal government's closure of popular attractions.

The White House and Capitol are both off-limits to tours. The Capitol is scheduled to reopen to tourists Wednesday, but the White House is closed to the public indefinitely.

Orlando has been hit harder than most communities because of the slowdown in travel. Orange County's collections from the resort tax on hotel and motel rooms declined by nearly a third for September.

An estimated 60,000 to 80,000 workers have had their work schedules reduced, been laid off or faced pay cuts since Sept. 11.

The trip also gave Mr. Bush a new opportunity to prod the Senate into sending him an economic stimulus bill. The legislation has become bogged down in partisan disputes over tax cuts and how much aid it should include for the unemployed.

Mr. Bush said he believes Democrats want to help the unemployed, but said "they need to stop fussing and stop talking and get something to my desk."

Mr. Bush has called for a blend of corporate tax cuts, accelerated personal income tax reductions and aid to hurting workers, but Tuesday the emphasis was on the aid.

Tourism is Florida's largest industry at $50 billion annually in gross sales. But the number of visitors has declined by 6 percent compared with last year, with a drop apparent since Sept. 11, said Tom Flanigan, a spokesman for Visit Florida, the state's public-private tourism marketing corporation.

Mr. Bush's tourism rally at the Orange County Convention Center "sure can't hurt," Flanigan said. It was the first town hall meeting of its kind for Mr. Bush, who favored this forum during his campaign.

Disney World has laid off scores of workers, and they were the kinds of employees who were meeting with the president, along with hotel and restaurant workers.