"If demand continues to accelerate quarter after quarter after quarter, some of the uncertainty in the economy would begin to abate," Ivan G. Seidenberg, chairman of the Business Roundtable and chief executive officer of New York-based Verizon Communications Inc., said today during a conference call.

"Short-term demand is good," he said. "But you still have these fundamental issues that unless you keep reducing the amount of uncertainty, you won't get a really big pickup in investment and a deployment in the capital that's necessary to really supercharge the economy."

Spending Plan

Fifty-nine percent of executives said they plan to spend more on equipment, up from 49 percent, the survey showed.

The executives forecast U.S. economic growth of 2.5 percent in 2011 after projecting 1.9 percent growth for 2010 in the previous survey. That compares with the 2.6 percent median estimate of economists for 2011 surveyed by Bloomberg News from Dec. 2-8.

"Positively we'll see stimulus created over the next 12 months, but I think if we don't head into 2012 and 2013 with more fundamental reforms, we'll end up sort of dragging our feet a little bit about how we can accelerate the growth of the economy," Seidenberg said, citing the need for changes to personal income and international taxes in the U.S.

"The country needs to have a discussion around these things so we can create a more permanent solution," he said.