Bagby Gives Keynote Speech at Perot Conference

Meredith E. Bagby '95, not Bob Dole or Phil Gramm, will soon be running the government--at least if H. Ross Perot has anything to say about it.

Bagby, who graduated with a degree magna cum laude in economics last June, was invited to give the keynote address at the 1992 independent presidential candidate's "United We Stand" conference in Dallas, Texas last week.

Bagby's speech, entitled "Our Future, Our Children's Future," was in front of a national audience that included all 10 of the Republican candidates for the 1996 presidential race.

"I talked about some of the issues surrounding our growth rate," Bagby said. "It's really low [and] the savings rate is very low. Indicators lead us to believe [Americans] will have a lower quality of life in the future."

Bagby was launched into the national spotlight last spring when Perot discovered a project she completed during her senior year, The Annual Report. That report reviewed the economic status of the United States based on information Bagby collected from assorted government publications.

Perot presented the report to the Senate Banking Committee in Washington, D.C., and Bagby eventually published the report as a book.

While Bagby said she didn't think the conference would have a profound influence on the upcoming presidential race because "It's too early for people to know who's going to be the front-runners," she described it as important because it exposed a politically disillusioned America to open discussion on issues that face the country.

"So many people have lost all hope in either party," said Bagby, who describes herself as an independent voter not affiliated with either political party. "People are discouraged with both parties, and the tactics they use to go at each other--the fact that people have really tried to hurt each other instead of getting the right legislation through."

Since she became Perot's newest protege, Bagby has begun work in New York at the prestigious investment firm Morgan Stanley, and has continued work on The Annual Report. A second edition for 1996 will soon be published by Harper Business and will be available in bookstores at the end of January, 1996.

Bagby said the second edition will be fundamentally similar to the first edition, although it will feature cosmetic upgrades in addition to new research on topics which Bagby said she thinks are key issues for the next few years.

"[The Annual Report will] look better and have better graphics," she said. "I also want to focus on issues important during this year like the Republican Contract With America and the Republican Congress; [I want to] talk about social security, and look at the finances of that and the welfare system."

Bagby said she has been "overwhelmed" by the success of her research, which was inspired by a course she took with Maier Professor of Political Economy Benjamin M. Friedman '66 and by work she did with Baker Professor of Economics Martin Feldstein '61.

"I wasn't really prepared for it," she said of the attention her work has garnered.

"[Friedman and Feldstein] talked about policy problems which would cause trouble 20 years down the line," Bagby said. "The more you listen to them, the more scared you get. I just wanted to try to do something to bring people's attention to those problems."