Excerpts from Remarks by
U.S. Commerce Secretary Don Evans
at the President's Economic Forum
Waco, TX

·I have been traveling across this country for the last 18 months, but
specifically the last four or five months, very focused on the economy and concerns all across this land, and wanting to reassure people that economy is doing well. It's fundamentally strong. The -- of course there are people that want a job and need a job that don't have a job. And until everybody that wants a job, needs a job has a job, we won't rest.

·And I like to remind people in times like this that our economy, our economic
system, is incredibly durable. It made it through two World Wars. It's made it through a Depression. It's made it through 10 recessions since the end of World War II and is strong. And it's recovering again -- recovering from one of the shallowest recessions that we have seen since World War II.

·We -- it looks like now the recession began in early part of 2001, first quarter. The first three quarters, now it appears, were all negative GDP growth. We had very strong positive GDP growth in the fourth quarter, which gives you a sense of the resiliency of this economy, particularly when you think about what happened September 11th. There were a lot of people very concerned about what that terrorist attack would do to our economic foundation. And I think because of this president's leadership, I think because of, quite frankly, information technology as well, I think people had the information they needed in a real-time -- in real time, so they could make quick decisions and not overreact to the situation that we were faced with September 11th. But clearly one of the most important reasons that the economy did well in the fourth quarter and continues to do well in the first half of 2002 was the president's leadership and people feeling confident that there was strong leadership in this country at a very critical moment, a moment when we were attacked and a moment where this country found itself at war.