To: 2MAR$ who wrote (337 ) 1/2/2001 10:57:23 AM From: 2MAR$ Respond to of 6445 Greenspan, O'Neill Won't Attend Bush Economic Meeting WASHINGTON (Dow Jones)--Neither Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan nor Treasury Secretary-nominee Paul O'Neill will attend the economic forum that President-elect George W. Bush will hold in Austin, Texas, Wednesday and Thursday, Ari Fleischer, a spokesman for Bush, said Tuesday. Instead, the meeting Wednesday will be dominated by corporate chieftains such as Jack Welch of General Electric, Michael Dell of Dell Computers and Lee Scott of Wal-Mart. The meeting Thursday will be dominated by executives from the high-tech world but Fleischer didn't offer any names. The Bush transition team said it will have a complete list of attendees later Tuesday. Bush decided to put the emphasis for his economic forum on corporate leaders because he wanted to hear directly from the business community what its thoughts are. "The president-elect wants to listen to the people who are at the heart of job creation, who live and breathe on the strength of our economy. So he wants to listen to how they think the economy is performing," Fleischer said. Fleischer said that many of the participants in the economic forum will have been able to see exactly how their Christmas sales have panned out and "their sense of it (the economy), obviously, is going to be sharper and faster than any government projection could be." In the case of the high-tech executives, Bush will also be looking for their ideas on education issues because of their reliance on highly skilled workers. Fleischer confirmed that Greenspan hadn't been invited to the forum to begin with but said there was no significance in this decision. Instead, he noted that Bush met privately with Greenspan in mid-December and the two men were able to exchange ideas on the economy then. In the case of O'Neill, Fleischer said the Treasury secretary-designate needs to remain in Washington to attend to his confirmation process. The same is true of Don Evans, the longtime friend of Bush, who is the incoming Commerce secretary. Previously, the Bush transition team said Evans would attend the meeting. -By Alex Keto, Dow Jones Newswires; 202-862-9256; Alex.keto@dowjones.com