WASHINGTON
Talk about pressure.
In town for a meeting of the National Association of Manufacturers, Fletcher Steele of Winston-Salem learned yesterday that he would be talking to President Bush about how businesses are weathering the current economic crisis.
His meeting with the president, he was told, would be in about an hour.
But Steele, the president of Pine Hall Brick, knew what he needed to say.
"We didn't have to practice," Steele said. "We know what's happened. It was very easy for us to get up and talk."
Steele was one of 14 business executives from NAM who spoke to Bush in a hastily arranged private meeting about the economic bailout package and how the inability to obtain credit is hurting their businesses.
Steele, a member of NAM's board for small- and medium-size manufacturers, said he told Bush what has occurred at Pine Hall Brick.
The company makes and sells bricks to builders.
The burst of the housing bubble has hit the company hard, Steele said, and business is down 40 percent from what it was two years ago.
Earlier this week, the company had to lay off 19 workers, he said.
Steele told the president that next year is projected to be worse.
The group met with Bush for about 40 minutes, and each businessperson was able to talk about how he or she was being affected by rough economic times.
Steele said that Bush seemed interested in what each person had to say, asked questions and was sympathetic to the group's concerns.
Bush used the occasion to illustrate the effects of congressional inaction on a bailout proposal and pressed the House to pass the bill.
"This is an issue that is affecting hardworking people," Bush said during a news conference after the meeting.
"They are worried about their savings, they're worried about their jobs, they're worried about their houses, they're worried about their small businesses," he said.
"The House of Representatives must listen to these voices and get this bill passed so we can get about the business of restoring confidence," Bush said.
Steele said he is philosophically opposed to the bailout, but he supports it because it's needed.
"We need a floor for the falling consumer confidence," he said.
■ Amy Dominello can be reached at 202-662-7671 or at adominello@mediageneral.com.
■ The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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