Font ResizeWashington » President Barack Obama summoned more than 130 civic and business leaders to the White House on Thursday to discuss ways to spur immediate job growth as the nation crawls out of a deep economic recession.
The national unemployment rate is 10.2 percent -- the highest in a quarter century -- and it will likely climb when the new figure is released today.
Utah's employment rate rose to 6.5 percent in October, still well below most states.
Prominent Utah businessman Fred Lampropoulos attended the president's jobs summit, saying it was "enjoyable and rewarding" to participate in the bipartisan discussion.
Lampropoulos is the chief executive of South Jordan-based Merit Medical, one of the state's leading medical device manufacturers. His company creates disposable items involving cardiology and gastroenterology and has added 225 new employees in 2009.
He is also a well-known Republican who after only one week in the race decided against challenging Sen. Bob Bennett in 2010, citing a new business opportunity.
At the summit, Lampropoulos joined 29 other people in a discussion about creating jobs and spurring competition. Business leaders weren't the only participants. The group also included university presidents, economists, nonprofit leaders and union representatives.
Other sessions focused on such things as workers, small businesses, green jobs and exports.
"It was more engaging than I thought it was going to be," Lampropoulos said afterward. "I think there were some very good ideas put on the table."
His group discussed the sense of uncertainty surrounding major policy initiatives such as health care, regulatory reform and energy, which has CEOs hesitant about the potential impacts on their businesses. Lampropoulos asked the president about it in the closing session.
Obama said he considered holding off on these issues until the economy rebounded but in the end felt reforming the health system, imposing new regulations and tackling climate change would place the country on a better footing.
"My belief was that we had to start tackling some of those fundamental problems if we were going to emerge stronger than we were before," he said.
Along the same lines, Lampropoulos encouraged the government to create a five-year tax credit for research and development instead of deciding on the funding annually.
The White House promised to examine these ideas and dozens of others as it makes policy decisions in the months to come and Obama said he will lean on this same group of leaders along the way.
The White House has held similar summits on other priorities, seeking to at least start the debate on a nonideological footing, though in the case of health reform, that did not last long. It is likely that any jobs bill would also turn into a partisan fight, with Republicans already calling the forum "a photo op" and criticizing the president for not pushing free trade agreements or tax cuts for small business.
While the business leaders were meeting at the White House, Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch was appearing on MSNBC.
He criticized Democrats for using taxpayer money to try to create jobs.
"I don't know why people on the other side are so doggone stupid to think that the federal government is going to produce jobs," Hatch said. "What they are producing are small time government jobs and it is just awful."
House Democrats are expected to take the lead on a jobs bill in the coming weeks that at a minimum would include an extension of unemployment benefits. But Obama said he is not planning on spending his way out of the recession.
"While I believe that government has a critical role in creating the conditions for economic growth, ultimately true economic recovery is only going to come from the private sector," he said at the start of the summit.
