Vote: The New Economy's First Campaign

I want to go even further than that. I want to redefine the way that the Federal Communications Commission thinks about universal service: I think that universal service should include Internet access for every home and that we should move from every classroom being wired to every desk having Internet access. We need to bring the same revolutionary fervor to the enhancement of productivity in education as we have seen in the business sector.

For more information on the presidential campaign of Vice President Al Gore, visit the official Gore Web site (www.algore2000.com).

Texas Governor George W. Bush: "The Web is freeing people."

The interior of the charter 737 was festooned with crepe paper. There was a birthday cake. There was champagne served in plastic cups. And there was a birthday boy: George W. Bush, governor of Texas and Republican nominee for president of the United States. Governor Bush was a day away from turning 54 and on his way from San Diego to Austin when I sat down with him to talk about his views on leadership in the new economy; the impact of the Web on business, government, and society; and the challenge of the digital divide.

In a one-on-one conversation, the filters, screens, and spin that inevitably are part of any TV-news broadcast, press conference, or political rally disappear. In person, George W. Bush comes across as a person who genuinely gets the logic and the operation of the new economy -- as a graduate of the Harvard Business School, as an entrepreneur, and as the governor of a state that is in the process of making its own transition from dependency on the industries of the old economy to leadership in the industries of the new economy. For him, the issues of talent, technology, and innovation are direct and personal, based as much on experience as on training. What kind of president would Bush make? How would his take on the new economy inform his policies and practices? Below, he talks about how the new economy affects the roles of government and, more specifically, the president.

Is there a new economy? And if there is, how does it change the role and responsibilities of the federal government?

There is a new economy, and it's rapidly changing. Many of the changes in the new economy are happening in spite of government, which leads to my first point: The role of government is to create an environment in which change occurs, the marketplace adjusts, entrepreneurialism is strong, and people are willing to take risks. So public policy in the new economy ought to be based on less interference; on innovation, rather than litigation; on free trade; and on a civil-justice system that is fair and balanced. Public policy ought to create an environment in which capital moves to support entrepreneurial efforts -- which is one of the reasons why I believe that we ought to reduce the marginal rate on taxes. I think that a tax-rate reduction will return money to the taxpayers and that a portion of that money will end up being invested as venture capital, the lifeblood of much of the high-tech world.

Second, trade is a big issue in the new economy. A world that doesn't trade freely is a world that is going to constrain the development of new commerce. Reasonable export controls, intellectual property rights, and open markets are important elements in the trade issue. But fundamentally, the next president must be a free trader in mentality. He must be tough enough to withstand the political pressures inherent in a free-trade position.

I don't think that anyone can predict with any accuracy where the world is headed. I think that we can accurately predict some of the consequences of the new economy: better productivity, closer relations between producers and customers. And I think that we can predict some of the issues that the government will have to deal with: cyber-terrorism, information privacy. Government itself, which is slow to respond to the innovations of the marketplace, eventually will be affected by the new economy. The layers of bureaucracy between the government and the customer will be removed dramatically. In Austin, we're learning the lessons of the private sector: Michael Dell is one of the forerunners in understanding how to interface the company directly with the customer, so that companies can design products the way that customers want them. In the State of Texas, we're beginning to move in ways that say that the customer is the most important person to state government.

There's one other effect of the new economy -- and that's on the psychology of America. The new economy is results-based. The question in the new economy is not, "What is the process?" In the new economy, the question is, "What are the results?" We're beginning to apply that new-economy thinking to education. A consensus is beginning to grow that demands that public policy focus on educational results: "Here are the results that we want. Now, redesign the system to get them."