Washington ? President Bush appealed to Congress on Saturday for quick and decisive action to fight corporate fraud that has eroded trust in big business and cast a pall over the economic recovery that has cost investors money and workers jobs.

A Democratic leader on the issue agreed on the urgent need for legislation, especially considering Wall Street’s sharp drop. “We’re out to restore capitalism,” said Sen. Paul Sarbanes, D-Md.

Sarbanes said congressional negotiators “want to get a system in place that will provide some assurances that these abuses won’t happen again.” He repeated on television his idea to create an independent accounting standards board to inspect and investigate the accounting industry and punish wrongdoers.

In his weekly radio address, Bush said the need for action was critical because “the trust of the American people has been betrayed.”

Bush said there was no reason Congress cannot complete work on legislation before leaving for its August vacation. Sarbanes indicated efforts would be made to “try to get a bill done in the very near future.”

As they work against the vacation deadline, their attention clearly will be on the stock market, where a 400-point sell-off brought the Dow Jones industrial average Friday to its lowest level in almost four years.

“Unethical business practices by corporate leaders amount to theft and fraud,” Bush said in the radio address. “These practices are unacceptable, and we are fighting them with active prosecutions and tough enforcement” by the Securities and Exchange Commission.