Bush Institute To Host Economic Growth Conference
DALLAS (AP) - Experts and business leaders are set to attend a two-day conference on economic growth starting Tuesday at the George W. Bush Institute.
James K. Glassman, executive director of the institute, said that the conference kicks off the group's initiative to find ways for the U.S. economy to achieve 4 percent gross domestic product growth. He said that since the 1950s, the U.S. economy has grown at an average of about 3.5 percent a year.
"What we want to do at the Bush Institute is to find a blueprint so that the policymakers and business people can use it to get America to 4 percent growth," he said. "This conference is all about a very optimistic view for America at a time when a lot of people are pessimistic."
He said that their three-year project to focus on ways to grow the economy to 4 percent will include publishing a book by the end of the year. He said that over those three years the institute will hold more conferences and commission research on the topic.
Former President George W. Bush is set to speak Tuesday at the conference ,which will include recipients of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Studies.
Also speaking Tuesday will be Meg Whitman, the former CEO of online auctioneer eBay Inc. Whitman, the Republican candidate for California governor, lost to Democrat Jerry Brown in the fall.
The conference will be held on the campus of Southern Methodist University, where the George W. Bush Presidential Center is being built. The center, which will house the Bush library and the institute, is expected to be completed in 2013.
(© Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)
