At last week’s White House economic summit, President Bush said, “One of the tests of leadership at all levels of government is to confront problems before they become a crisis.” The president is correct.

We have many economic problems – a health-care system based on centralized planning, an inefficient tax system, profligate government spending, and a litigious tort system to name just a few. The president recognizes these problems and intends to confront them.

But confronting problems is not the same as solving them, and Mr. Bush cannot solve these on his own. Also, in order to accomplish what he can, Mr. Bush must allow members of his administration to abandon their hallmark silence on public-policy issues.

Rewriting harmful laws is the province of Congress. To every president falls the responsibility of being accountable for the economy yet having little power to influence it.

Under our government, changes in law are thankfully rare. Each session of Congress passes fewer than a dozen truly major pieces of legislation.

And each new major law is not necessarily a step in the right economic direction. In President Bush’s first term in office, some major legislation passed by Congress was politically popular but not necessarily economically beneficial, such as an overfed farm bill, securities law reform, and a Medicare drug benefit. In contrast, the tax bills and the new Department of Homeland Security brought America out of a recession and increased its citizens’ security.

Powerful congressional chairmen can properly view new laws, whether beneficial or not, as trophies. Regardless of its actual effects on the economy, a new law is the tangible demonstration of the power of a committee chairmanship, the capstone of a congressional career usually spanning 20 years or more.

But a president has a more precarious political career. He has but four years in a term and realistically only the first two years of those to influence significantly non-spending legislation. The president receives blame when the economy does poorly and credit when it performs well, regardless of the reality that the president has little influence on the state of the economy.

How can the president demonstrate his form of leadership by confronting economic problems that he is powerless to change on his own?

Last week at the economic summit, the president personally emphasized four areas in need of change: health care, Social Security, taxes, and tort reform. These are important and politically risky issues. On some of these, Congress wishes to do nothing, and even if Congress is persuaded to act, the results may be economically harmful.

To avoid having his proposals defeated, the president could simply abandon domestic policy altogether and leave it to Congress. Previous presidents have abandoned these issues. These problems have been building for decades.

President Bush is to be congratulated for not choosing this course. Silence would be failing to confront problems, failing the very leadership the president has demonstrated.

However, the president could go even further, and confront many other, perhaps less important, issues. To do this, the president would have to abandon one of the characteristics of his administration – its remarkable ability to keep hundreds of high-ranking political appointees on the same message.

But a unified message also has its disadvantages. An administration with one voice is necessarily cautious about what it says and painfully slow to disseminate ideas. The technique of a unified message works when an administration is focused on a handful of issues, but an unintended consequence is that hundreds of lesser issues go unaddressed and unconfronted.

Under President Reagan, dozens of lesser known officials spoke eloquently about matters great and small. Both the public and the press knew that these individuals spoke their minds and not necessarily with the prior approval of the president. Some, such as CEA chair Martin Feldstein, lost their jobs because of their candor. Mr. Reagan’s was another example of leadership: confronting a large number of problems without risking the presidency itself.

President Bush’s persuasion and resolve will be vital in working with Congress on Social Security, tort reform, healthcare, and government spending. He could accomplish even more, however, if the administration had a less centralized communications policy.

Mr. Furchtgott-Roth, a former commissioner of the Federal Communications Commission, can be reached at hfr@furchtgott-roth.com.