Corporate Executives Urge Bush to Block Measures That Increase Business Costs
WASHINGTON -- Top corporate executives urged President Bush to stop legislation that raises business costs and to continue pushing for lower interest rates.</br></br>The president met yesterday with 10 business leaders as part of an evolving effort to show concern about the state of the economy. In addition to the hour-long meeting, Mr. Bush presided over a cabinet meeting where he heard several presentations on the economy.</br></br>Today he is scheduled to hear again from his economic advisers to discuss ways of easing tight credit conditions, the third such meeting he has held in the past two weeks.</br></br>The business leaders, who were mostly chairmen of Fortune 500 companies, had differing views of the economy's health, according to Robert Giordano, a Goldman, Sachs & Co. economist who attended. But they were largely unanimous in urging the president to oppose measures that increase business costs -- such as legislation mandating health benefits -- and to push measures that reduce those costs -- such as limits on product liability suits.</br></br>"I think the most important thing is that we not add to . . . added costs to the society," said John Georges, chairman of International Paper Co. "In other words, we do have a slow-growing economy; we've got to be careful we don't bury it with additional costs, whether they be a whole variety of social, environmental issues."