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McCain lays out tech policy

August 15, 2008 — 8:30am ET | By Judi Hasson
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Republican Presidential Candidate
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Campaign Statement

Republican presidential candidate John McCain this week outlined his technology policy, a plan that he said would encourage American innovation and competitiveness through tax breaks and incentives for research. He said it includes a permanent research and development tax credit, and a plan that would allow companies to expense the costs of new equipment or technology in the first year.

He added that he favors open trade, worker retraining, a reduction in business regulations, as well as protection of intellectual property. McCain also vowed to keep the Internet free of unnecessary regulation and backs network neutrality laws. Finally, he said he supports increased access to broadband, and strongly backs a hike in the number of H-1B visas issued annually with the U.S. Department of Labor determining the number of visas issued each year.

"American workers should always be the first choice for highly skilled technology jobs. However, there is a critical shortage of these workers and American competitiveness is suffering as a result," McCain campaign statement said. "John McCain will expand the number of H-1B visas to allow our companies to keep top-notch talent--often trained in our graduate schools--in the United States."

The statement later continued, "For every foreign worker hired, corporations generally hire five to ten additional American workers."

For more on McCain's tech policies:
- see this InformationWeek.com article

Comments (3) | Post a comment

Comments

By Anonymous | Posted 11:39am | August 15, 2008

A "critical shortage" means wages rise to fill it. Anyone trying to say there is any "critical shortage" in this time of swiftly rising unemployment would be advised to list the jobs they cannot fill, the skillsets required for those jobs, and the wages they are willing to pay compared to the inflation-adjusted wages for those jobs ten years ago.

By American Gypsie | Posted 6:58pm | August 15, 2008

There has never been a shortage of technical workers. This rhetoric is the mantra of technology consulting companies that have Congress in their pockets.

You believers must not remember the mergers, acquisitions, downsizing, rightsizing, outsourcing and offshoring that have decimated American technology and manufacturing companies during the past 20 years.

The only shortage is the IQ of CEOs and Wall Street investors who celebrate layoffs.

Over 600,000 science and engineering degrees are granted annually from American universities.(1) The US produces only 120,000 science and engineering jobs per year.(2) That leaves 480,000 graduates per year without jobs in their chosen careers. Add to this over 240,000 H-1B visas and an equal number of L-1 visas each year. Half a million Americans are losing their jobs to cheap foreign technical workers every year. Another half million Americans waste their S&E degrees on non-S&E jobs.
SOURCES:
(1) Tabulated by National Science Foundation/Division of Science Resources Statistics (NSF/SRS); data from Department of Education/National Center for Education Statistics: Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System Completions Survey and NSF/SRS: Survey of Earned Doctorates.

(2) US Bureau of Labor Statistics
web links are not allowed

H-1B and L-1 visas are the Trojan Horse to offshoring of American Jobs.

By Anonymous | Posted 12:55pm | August 18, 2008

Shortage -- um is he not aware of the massive layoffs? Half the issue is American companies are given all these tax breaks they shouldn't get -- why? because they exploit 3rd world country labor pools and put seasoned tech workers out on the streets.

If I can't afford a 4 dollar gallon of gas or a loaf of bread because my so called employer wants to pay me '3rd world country wages' for highly skilled labor, then I'm sorry there is no shortage... its a matter of greed and top level CEOs siphoning off the top, and NOT re-investing any money in US based operations, only foreign ones.

I don't think any company should be able to be on traded on the US exchange unless a bulk of operations are here... ditto with any tax incentives.

You want to operate 90% overseas, then get the hell out of my country and quit exploiting it.

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