15 Articles Worth Reading
15 Articles Worth Reading
Date: Monday, May 01, 2006 5:13 PM
JOB DESTRUCTION NEWSLETTER
May 01, 2006 No. 1468
<<< COMMENTS FROM ROB >>>
The mainstream media barrage in support of H-1B increases continues. This
is no coincidence since the Senate will soon be pushing for the immigration
bill that contains huge increases of work-based visas including H-1B and
F-4. The few articles you see below that oppose H-1B are not in MSM
newspapers or magazines. MSM sources are very monilithic in their opinions
that the U.S. must increase the number of H-1Bs, allow more foreign
students to stay here to work, and to allow more so-called low skilled
workers to obtain guest worker visas.
#9 may read like it's written by an editorial board in Michigan, but it's
actually an idiotorial plant written in Washington DC by the pro H-1B lobby
group CompeteAmerica,
<<< END COMMENTS>>>
Article 1:
http://www.oregonlive.com/metrosouthwest/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/metro_southwest_news/1144994178105010.xml&coll=7
Visa plan doesn't give comfort to unemployed tech workers
Backers say guest workers are a boon to communities, but critics say U.S.
workers suffer "These people are on the books, highly taxed and a great
boon to the communities they work in," Camden says of workers who hold H-1B
visas.
Article 2:
http://www.newswithviews.com/Cuddy/dennis64.htm
"SUCKERNOMICS"
In my previous article, I introduced the term "Suckernomics." The reception
to this new term was very positive, so I have decided to expand upon its
principles. Suckernomics is the process whereby the American public is
made, and kept, economically ignorant.
Article 3:
http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=186700020
Down To Business: IT Globalization: Don't Kill the Messenger
Don't try to seal off our borders, either. Employment and pay are up, so we
must be doing something right. In another bile-laden E-mail, a reader
argued that Bill Gates--the person who has created more high-paying tech
jobs and donated more money to charity than anyone in human history--is a
lowlife for wanting access to more foreign nationals under an expanded H-1B
work visa program. Of course, not everyone opposed to H-1B visas and
globalization is a quack.
Article 4:
http://www.prweb.com/releases/2006/4/prweb373569.htm
Tech Group Grants "Weasel Award" To Senate Hopeful from Virginia
The IT Professionals Association of America (ITPAA) has awarded its first
Weasel Award of 2006 to Senate hopeful Harris Miller (Democrat) of Virginia
for his efforts promoting offshoring and the importation of foreign
workers.
Article 5:
http://www.suntimes.com/output/steyn/cst-edt-steyn09.html
No easy answers on immigration conundrum
Here's my immigration "compromise": We need to regularize the situation of
the 298 million non-undocumented residents of the United States. Right now,
we get a lousy deal compared with the 15 million fine upstanding members of
the Undocumented American community.
Article 6:
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/local/states/california/the_valley/14286391.htm
H-1B visa law criticized
Employers are not required to prove that American workers were not
available for those jobs. The Labor Condition Application requires
information about the H-1B position and the wage an employer intends to
pay, which must be at least the prevailing market wage. The law also
doesn't require the labor department to verify that employers actually pay
the wages they stipulate unless there is a complaint.
Article 7:
http://www.pww.org/article/articleview/9039/1/319
CWA hits high-tech visas
Spotlighting an aspect of the nations immigration debate that has
received little attention, the Communications Workers executive board voted
April 18 to lobby against a guest worker program which allows employers to
create a temporary workforce of tens of thousands of lower-paid high-tech
"guest workers."
Article 8:
http://www.courant.com/news/opinion/editorials/hc-skilled.artapr21,0,6811563.story?coll=hc-headlines-editorials
Not Enough Skilled Workers
The imbalance didn't develop suddenly. Educators and politicians have been
talking about the shortage of high-skilled workers for decades. They have
yet to fix the problem.
Article 9:
http://www.mlive.com/news/grpress/index.ssf?/base/news-1/11453721608340.xml&coll=6#continue
or
http://www.competeamerica.org/editorials/20060418_gr.html
Letting more skilled workers in would be unlikely to put any U.S. citizen
in an unemployment line.
Article 10:
http://eastbay.bizjournals.com/eastbay/stories/2006/04/17/daily44.html
Bush meets with Bay Area business leaders
Aart de Geus, the chairman and chief executive of Synopsys Inc. said he
hoped the president would show "conviction". He said he also hoped the
president would address immigration reform and commit to increasing the
number of H1-B visas from the current limit of 65,000 to 105,000 or more.
Article 11:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2006/04/21/BUGGKICDG41.DTL&type=business
Talking tough on tech
President in Silicon Valley today to tout competitiveness
"We can either look at China and say, 'Let's compete with China in a fair
way,' or say, 'We can't compete with China' and therefore kind of isolate
ourselves from the world,'' he said. "We're trying to attract the best and
brightest from around the world,'' said Hoffman, the TechNet policy
director.
<<< Must click link to read 12-15 >>>
Article 12:
http://www.vdare.com/roberts/060417_jobs.htm
Another Grim Report on the Jobs Front
By Paul Craig Roberts
Is your job safe? Not if it can be done abroad. The only safe jobs are in
domestic services that require a "hands-on" presence, such as barbers,
hospital orderlies, and waitresses.
Article 13:
http://www.vdare.com/roberts/060424_america.htm
America Is No Superpower
By Paul Craig Roberts
Is the United States a superpower? I think not.
Article 14:
http://www.vdare.com/mann/060424_amnesty.htm
As Guest Worker Amnesty Looms --- Remember The GAO Fraud Report!
By Juan Mann
Another illegal alien amnesty looms on the political horizon. But as long
as the Department of Homeland Securitys Citizenship and Immigration
Services (CIS) division administers it, an immigration benefit fraud
free-for-all will certainly result.
Article 15:
http://www.vdare.com/rubenstein/060427_nd.htm
National Data
By Edwin S. Rubenstein
WSJ Edit Page Contradicts Self on Immigration, Minimum Wage
When supply goes up, price goes down. Few economic principles are less
controversial. Unless, that is, were discussing the economics of
immigration.
1. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://www.oregonlive.com/metrosouthwest/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/metro_southwest_news/1144994178105010.xml&coll=7
Visa plan doesn't give comfort to unemployed tech workers
Backers say guest workers are a boon to communities, but critics say U.S.
workers suffer
Thursday, April 20, 2006
REBECCA CLARREN
The Oregonian
Despite a resume that boasts 20 years' experience, a 4.0 grade-point
average and a master's degree in software design and development, Lake
Oswego resident Mitch Besser can't find a job. The 44-year-old software
developer hasn't had full-time work since 2001.
He's not alone -- most of his friends in the high-tech sector have moved
out of Oregon. While the industry is recovering from the 2001 recession,
according to the state economist's most recent forecast, the computer and
electronic product manufacturing sector is expected to lose about 3,000
jobs from 2006 to 2011.
"It's been tough," Besser says. "I may be leaving town, too. I've just
about given up looking in Portland for jobs."
Proposed federal legislation isn't likely to help Besser find work. A
provision in a proposed immigration bill on the Senate floor would expand
the H-1B visa program, which allows temporary entry to the United States
for workers in "a specialty occupation" who are sponsored by a U.S.
employer. The provision would increase the number of H-1B visas for
engineers and high-tech workers from 65,000 to 115,000, with an option of
raising the cap an additional 20 percent every year.
Proponents of the legislation, mostly the owners of high-tech companies or
the subcontractors who supply such workers, cite the dearth of U.S.
engineering students and the resulting lack of qualified candidates.
"We need talent wherever we can get it," says Gary Nashif, owner of ATSI
Group, a Tigard-based consultant company that finds jobs for high-tech
workers.
Bringing people into the Portland area from places such as India and China
is better for the local economy than shipping jobs overseas, says Carl
Camden, president of Kelly Services Inc., a Fortune 500 company based in
Troy, Mich., that employs hundreds of technical employees throughout the
Portland area.
"These people are on the books, highly taxed and a great boon to the
communities they work in," Camden says of workers who hold H-1B visas.
Ryerson Schwark, a spokesman for Mentor Graphics in Wilsonville, says, "The
ability to find talent wherever we can in the world is definitely a good
thing."
Yet it's not a good thing for U.S. workers, says Niranjan Ramakrishnan, a
Tigard resident who is president of Pantheon Systems Inc., a software
consulting and training firm. Ramakrishnan, who came to this country from
India as a student, says he prefers to hire locally because if the United
States stops creating a need for high-tech workers at home, U.S. college
students won't have an incentive to train as engineers or programmers.
"It's a use-it-or-lose-it syndrome," he says. "Given that there are so many
people in the country capable of doing these jobs, I think it is unwise" to
expand the visa program.
Besser, who heads ORTech, a labor association for technology professionals,
says the real reason companies want to expand the H-1B is that foreign
workers often end up as entry-level employees who earn less money.
Foreign-born H1-B programmers earn, on average, $13,000 less than U.S.
workers, according to the Occupational Employment Statistics program of the
U.S. Department of Labor.
"I get infuriated when I hear that (employers) can't find people," Besser
says.
Send your On the Job comments and story ideas to Rebecca Clarren at
rclarren@yahoo.com.
2, +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://www.newswithviews.com/Cuddy/dennis64.htm
"SUCKERNOMICS"
By Dennis L. Cuddy, Ph.D.
April 24, 2006
NewsWithViews.com
In my previous article, I introduced the term "Suckernomics." The reception
to this new term was very positive, so I have decided to expand upon its
principles. Suckernomics is the process whereby the American public is
made, and kept, economically ignorant. It begins even in elementary school,
and the following is a list of some of its basic principles. The list is
not meant to be exhaustive, and I am sure that you, the reader, will be
able to add examples to it.
1, Don't teach students basic reading and math skills, so they will not be
able to compete economically against those of other nations.
2, Convince Americans that more money is needed to solve our educational
problems, even though a tremendous increase in educational funding has
occurred over the past 4 decades, with negative results.
3, Teach children that petroleum products come from decayed fossils, even
though there is no evidence of massive numbers of dinosaurs or massive
amounts of vegetation in Middle Eastern desert regions or in the North Sea
or near Alaska where large deposits of oil have been found. Don't let them
know petroleum products are plentiful and come from methane derivatives,
available through deep-drilling techniques used by the Russians for
decades. Otherwise, they won't believe there's an oil shortage, and pay
continuously rising prices.
4, Require Americans to pay about 40% of their annual income in taxes, but
tell them that they are still better off than the serfs of feudal days who
paid a smaller percent of their production to the nobles.
5, Persuade Americans that they should pay taxes for government programs
which operate less efficiently than if run by private enterprise.
6, Entice Americans to purchase items on credit, even though that increases
the cost of the goods by 10-20%.
7, Have Americans place a large percent of their paycheck into a Social
Security "Trust Fund," which Congress then raids, leaving future senior
citizens wondering what happened to their hard-earned money for retirement.
8, Allow the federal government to get away with posting an inflation rate
that does not include increases in the price of food and fuel.
9, Give authority regarding trade decisions to the World Trade
Organization, run by unelected bureaucrats overseas who can tell Congress
it has to change our laws. Convince Americans that this is "free trade"
when it is actually "managed trade," because many nations still have trade
restrictions and subsidize industries in their own countries.
10, Dismiss calls for "fair trade," claiming American workers can compete
against slave and child labor.
11, Persuade Americans there are still such things as "American
corporations" as ownership increasingly goes overseas (e.g., 97% of sound
recording industries, 65% of metal ore mining, 64% of motion picture and
video industries, 63% of book publishers, etc.).
12, Have Americans believe that profits from American companies still stay
in the U.S. (e.g., Amoco's profits go to England, Random House's and
Chrysler's profits go to Germany, Gerber's profits go to Switzerland,
TransAmerica's profits go to The Netherlands, etc.).
13, Convince Americans that government incentives for American companies to
locate offices/jobs overseas will not harm the job prospects of American
workers (even comedian Jay Leno said President Bush went to India to visit
the American jobs that had relocated there).
14, Persuade Americans that NAFTA and GATT would bring high-paying
high-tech jobs to the U.S., while increasing numbers of high-tech jobs are
outsourced to India, etc., and while President Bush and Congress propose
dramatically increasing (from 65,000 to 350,00 annually) the number of H-1B
visas so that high-tech foreign workers can come to the U.S.
15, Convince Americans that increasing numbers of guest workers working for
minimum wage (because they are placed, for example, 10 in a house and pay
only 1/10th each for expenses) will not undercut American workers in many
industries (e.g., fast foods, construction, hotel and motel, grass-cutting,
carpet-cleaning, etc.) who have to pay 100% of their own expenses.
16, Persuade Americans increasingly to purchase cheap foreign-made products
here, leaving them to wonder why they cannot find a good-paying American
job anymore.
17, Convince Americans that they have still gotten their monies' worth
purchasing cheap products from overseas even though they don't last as long
as American-made products.
18, Have government severely regulate/limit the use of people's private
property, but still require them to pay the full amount of taxes on their
property.
19, Force/coerce people to turn over their private property to the
government in the name of preserving a pristine environment, but then this
same property is contracted out to developers/mining companies, etc., for
exploitation.
20, Drastically reduce the United States manufacturing base, yet assure
Americans that having missile parts, etc., made in Communist China or
elsewhere will not compromise our national security at any time, especially
during wartime.
21, Persuade Americans that building up the economy of Communist China via
investment and trade will not strengthen their military with which they can
threaten/attack us. Also convince Americans that giving the Communist
Chinese advanced missile technology will not aid them militarily either, if
they decide to attack the U.S., Taiwan, Japan, or some other nation in the
future.
22, Assure Americans that genetically modified foods and animals are
economically beneficial, even though the long-term health consequences of
such genetic modification is unknown. In an experiment, half of a field was
planted with unmodified soybeans and the other half of the field with
genetically modified soybeans----geese refused to eat the genetically
modified soybeans! Do they know something we don't know?
23, Spend millions of American tax dollars to build the Panama Canal and
then hand it over to a Panamanian dictator who sells operation rights at
either end of the canal to the Communist Chinese who could destroy it if in
a war with the U.S. in the future.
24, Have millions of American tax dollars spent on political campaigns to
oust Slobodan Milosevic as leader of Yugoslavia at the same time Americans
are expressing outrage over Communist Chinese political campaign
contributions to American candidates.
25, Spend millions of American tax dollars on textbooks teaching Afghan
children jihad (holy war) against foreign invaders, causing the Afghans
when grown to fight against the U.S. invasion.
26, Americans give millions of dollars in foreign aid to countries that
give large amounts of money to terrorists who want to destroy us (this is
the "sell them the rope with which they'll hang us" principle).
The result of suckernomics will be a further withering of the middle class,
resulting in a techno-feudal society ruled by an elite. Not only will this
be a return to feudalism, but the "suckers" have also been conditioned to
accept "futilism"----the idea that it is futile for them to resist
dominance by a power elite intent upon synthesizing Western Capitalism and
Eastern Communism into a World Socialist Government under the elite's
control (an updated, indexed edition of my book, THE ROAD TO SOCIALISM AND
THE NEW WORLD ORDER, will soon be published).
) 2006 Dennis Cuddy - All Rights Reserved
Order Dennis Cuddy's new book "Cover-Up: Government Spin or Truth?"
Dennis Laurence Cuddy, historian and political analyst, received a Ph.D.
from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (major in American
History, minor in political science). Dr. Cuddy has taught at the
university level, has been a political and economic risk analyst for an
international consulting firm, and has been a Senior Associate with the
U.S. Department of Education.
Cuddy has also testified before members of Congress on behalf of the U.S.
Department of Justice. Dr. Cuddy has authored or edited twenty books and
booklets, and has written hundreds of articles appearing in newspapers
around the nation, including The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times and USA
Today. He has been a guest on numerous radio talk shows in various parts of
the country, such as ABC Radio in New York City, and he has also been a
guest on the national television programs USA Today and CBS's Nightwatch.
3. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=186700020
Down To Business: IT Globalization: Don't Kill the Messenger
Don't try to seal off our borders, either. Employment and pay are up, so we
must be doing something right.
By Rob Preston, InformationWeek
April 24, 2006
URL:
http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=186700020
In response to my column two weeks ago on tech offshoring and
globalization, I received the usual hate mail for my unpatriotic, elitist
views. Critics said I was condoning policies that would hasten the U.S.
economy's "race to the bottom." I was advocating the decimation of the
middle class. I was naively unaware of a government conspiracy to suppress
"the truth" about offshore outsourcing.
"If you take the time to pull your head out of your ass," wrote one reader,
"[you'd realize] most Americans don't have any problem with trade in
general. They just think it's stupid to sell out, and bad for our future."
In other words, the free cross-border flow of goods, services, and people
is fine in theory ... but in theory only.
In another bile-laden E-mail, a reader argued that Bill Gates--the person
who has created more high-paying tech jobs and donated more money to
charity than anyone in human history--is a lowlife for wanting access to
more foreign nationals under an expanded H-1B work visa program.
Of course, not everyone opposed to H-1B visas and globalization is a quack.
One former programming analyst who is barely making ends meet in a lesser
job says all H-1B visas should be canceled as long as any American IT, call
center, or similar worker is not gainfully employed in his or her field.
"It's bad enough to send jobs overseas," he says, "but [it's] a slap in the
face to then bring in tens of thousands of cheap workers to take what jobs
are left."
So how many tech jobs are left in the United States? About 3.5 million--the
most in U.S. history, according to the latest report from the Bureau of
Labor Statistics. The number of IT management jobs is up 31% from 2001,
just before the dot-com bubble burst, while the number of IT staff jobs is
up slightly. Management and staff pay is at an all-time high as well,
according to an InformationWeek Research survey of 10,425 IT professionals.
The stats show there are still some soft spots. Compensation is up only
slightly from a year ago, mostly because of bonuses rather than salary
increases. And while the overall tech employment numbers are up, the number
of Americans developing and managing software is down from its all-time
high, thus the call from the former programming analyst to scrap the H-1B
visa program.
But rather than create tech jobs in the United States, such a protectionist
move would destroy them. Whether we like it or not, if Microsoft or
Citibank or Boeing can't get the software and other tech talent they need
in the United States at the price points their shareholders demand, then
they'll move those operations overseas, en masse. That 100-person
development team in the United States with 10 visa-carrying foreign
nationals will shrink to a handful of locals managing many more full-timers
and outsourcers in Bangalore or Prague. That's job creation?
And what about those foreign-born tech professionals? Silicon Valley is
home to hundreds of companies that were founded and are led by immigrants
or visa-carrying expatriates. They have created high-paying jobs for tens
of thousands of people. Yet if you ride the populist propaganda on
globalization to its extreme, they're just a bunch of job-stealing
foreigners.
In countries that "protect" their citizen workforces--places like France
and Germany, where regulations treat professionals to job security and
liberal benefits--unemployment rates are twice the U.S. level. No one can
lose a job in those two countries ... but no one can find one there,
either. Few multinational companies dare to locate, train, and hire more
than just minimal resources in those countries. Entrepreneurism is stifled.
Back in the United States, despite minimal unemployment, times are tough
for professionals even in vibrant industries such as health care,
entertainment, and media. Conventional delivery platforms are being torn up
and transformed. Customer demands are changing rapidly, so skill sets must
as well.
Adapt or be marginalized. There's no other choice.
Rob Preston,
VP/Editor In Chief
4. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://www.prweb.com/releases/2006/4/prweb373569.htm
Tech Group Grants "Weasel Award" To Senate Hopeful from Virginia
The IT Professionals Association of America (ITPAA) has awarded its first
Weasel Award of 2006 to Senate hopeful Harris Miller (Democrat) of Virginia
for his efforts promoting offshoring and the importation of foreign
workers.
Wilmington, DE (PRWEB) April 18, 2006 -- The Information Technology
Professionals Association of America (ITPAA), a high-tech advocacy group
based in Wilmington, Delaware has handed out its first Weasel Award of 2006
to Senate hopeful Harris Miller (Democrat) of Virginia. The organization,
representing over 1,200 professionals nationally, presents the award to
business and political leaders that it believes betrays the trust of the
American people and threatens Americas standing in the technology
sector.
Scott Kirwin, leader of the organization, states that as head of the
high-tech industry lobby group ITAA, "Miller lobbied tirelessly for laws
making it easier to offshore jobs, and fought every effort to stem the
erosion of Americas dominance in the technology field. He also lobbied
to drive down salaries and wages by dumping foreign workers into the
domestic job market under the H-1b and L-1 visa programs." The Federation
for American Immigration Reform (www.fairus.org) reports that millions of
trained foreigners have entered the US under the H-1b and L-1 visas, taking
jobs for 25-50% less than similarly skilled Americans.
"Harris Miller worked hard for a constituency of foreign nationals. That
constituency cant vote for him in the June 13th Virginia primary, but
those his policies hurt can."
Kirwin cites Millers positions and statements during his tenure as head
of the ITAA as documented by tech observer John Pardon, the ITPAA and
recent AFL-CIO statements:
1. In New Jersey Miller opposed legislation to prohibit off-shore
outsourcing of state contracts.
2. Miller opposed an amendment by Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-OH) to the FY 2005
Agriculture department appropriations bill to prohibit the offshore
outsourcing of all federal contracts related to the federal food stamp
program.
3. Millers persistently hyped "job shortages" without any evidence to
back up such claims. Kirwin notes that during the last recession, in April
2002 the ITAA reported a 500,000 IT positions went unfilled, and half a
million workers were needed from abroad to fill them. At the same time the
Labor Department released figures showing that 500,000 jobs had disappeared
from the economy.
4. On 10/20/03 Miller testified before the House Small Business Committee
on the off-shoring of white collar jobs. The Atlanta JournalConstitution
10/21/03 reported:
As U.S. companies send more high-tech work overseas, they are creating a
''downward pressure on salaries'' that may help slow American job losses, a
technology industry leader told Congress on Monday. Indeed, U.S. workers
may have to get used to lower wages, said Harris Miller, president of the
Information Technology Association of America.
5. 11/20/03 article in Tech Worker News entitled "IT Industry: Race to the
Bottom", summed up Millers work:
By pumping up the number of technologically skilled immigrants allowed into
the country and outsourcing growing numbers of tech jobs abroad, these
firms [U.S. technology companies are well on their way to guaranteeing that
whatever jobs of the future remain in America pay as little as possible.
Worse, in the process, theyre discouraging more and more young Americans
from studying science and technology, and thus encouraging a dangerous
dumbing-down of the nations future workforce
"Harris is not someone who wants to see jobs leaving this country,"
Millers communications director, Taylor West, said.
Kirwin laughs. "Thats news to me because offshoring and low wages are
the only things Miller knows about."
He is critical of Millers campaign statements calling for education
improvements and better broadband access. "Broadband is going to stop
offshoring? Even economists who support free trade dont believe that."
As for education, Kirwin cites Americas status as the number one
destination for foreign students in the world. "If our education is so bad,
why do people from abroad flock here to go to school?"
He is also critical of Millers criticism of opponent Jim Webb for his
statements on Affirmative Action. "Offshoring and importing foreign workers
have hurt minorities more than anything else. American minorities have
borne the brunt of the entry-level and mid-level jobs that disappeared
through Miller's efforts. His stances aren't words or promises of a
politician: they are actions that ended with a result. And that result was
worse job prospects for minority Americans."
Kirwin says that he is amazed by what changes he has seen in the American
economy in a short span of three years since founding the ITPAA. "Miller
and his group used to say that only low-level jobs would go abroad, that
high-level, better paying jobs would stay. However the foreign firms that
Miller lobbied for arent stupid: they are moving up the food chain to
get at the more lucrative work. As a result we see high-level engineering
and design work leaving the country, and cutting edge technical jobs in
fields that didnt even exist a few years ago now being done in Bangalore
and Beijing."
"Meanwhile the fastest growing jobs in the US Bureau of Labor Statistics
healthcare aides and retail/food service - dont require a college
degree or advanced training. They also happen to be some of the lowest
paying jobs in the country."
"Is it good for America to offshore the decent jobs and keep the low paying
ones?" he asks, adding "People like Miller scoff at national boundaries.
They think that people in China and India feel the same disdain they feel
for their own country. But Indians and Chinese are some of the most
patriotic people on the planet. No matter how lucrative the offer, they
will do what is best for their country. Unfortunately, Harris Miller
doesnt get that."
Previous winners of the award include Bill Gates for his support of the
H-1b visa program during a time of declining enrollment in Computer Science
programs, and Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) for her statements supporting
outsourcing on a trip to India while publicly criticizing it at home.
5. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://www.suntimes.com/output/steyn/cst-edt-steyn09.html
No easy answers on immigration conundrum
April 9, 2006
BY MARK STEYN SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST
Here's my immigration "compromise": We need to regularize the situation of
the 298 million non-undocumented residents of the United States. Right now,
we get a lousy deal compared with the 15 million fine upstanding members of
the Undocumented American community. I think the 298 million of us in the
overdocumented segment of the population should get the chance to be
undocumented. You know when President Bush talks about all those
undocumented people "living in the shadows"? Doesn't that sound kinda nice?
Living in the shadows, no government agencies harassing you for taxes and
numbers and paperwork.
Go ahead, try it. In Michelle Malkin's book Invasion, she recounts the tale
of two fellows who in August 2001 pulled into a 7-Eleven parking lot in
Falls Church, Va., in search of fake ID from the illegal-alien assistance
network that hangs around there. Luis Martinez-Flores, who'd been living
here illegally since 1994, took them along to the local DMV, supplied them
with a fake address and falsely certified they lived there. The very next
day, the two guys returned with two pals of their own, and used their own
brand-new state ID on which the ink was not yet dry to obtain in turn
brand-new state ID for their buddies. A couple of weeks later, all four of
them used their Virginia ID to board American Airlines Flight 77 at Dulles
Airport and plowed it into the Pentagon.
Think about that. From undocumented illegal alien in the 7-Eleven parking
lot to lawful resident of the State of Virginia in just a couple of hours.
Wow. Say what you like about Luis Martinez-Flores, but he runs one
efficient operation.
By comparison, say you've got two kids under 5, and you'd like to bring
over a nice English nanny to look after them. Name of Mary Poppins. Good
references, impeccable character. If you apply now, there's a sporting
chance the process may be completed before your children's children are in
college.
Given that the new immigration "compromise" bill retrospectively approves
all the millions of people who've been through the super-efficient Luis
Martinez-Flores immigration system but without doing anything to improve
the sclerotic U.S. government immigration system, maybe it would be better
just to subcontract the entire operation to Senor Martinez-Flores and his
colleagues. It would certainly be cheaper. The extensive Undocumented
American support network manages to run it out of the back of the car from
a parking lot without a lot of air-conditioned offices full of lifetime
employees on government pensions, and given that the net result is exactly
the same people who'd be living here anyway, why not go with the lowball
bid? Legal immigrants to the United States can only envy the swift
efficient service Messrs. Hani Hanjour and Khalid Almihdhar received
outside that 7-Eleven.
All developed countries have immigration issues, but few conduct the entire
debate as disingenuously as America does: The president himself has
contributed a whole barrelful of weaselly platitudes, beginning with his
line that "family values don't stop at the Rio Grande." True. They don't
stop at the 49th parallel either. Or the Atlantic shore. Or the Pacific. So
where do family values stop? At the Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration
Services. If you're an American and you marry a Canadian or Belgian or
Fijian, the U.S. government can take years to process what's supposed to be
a non-discretionary immigration application, in the course of which your
spouse will be dependent on various transitional-status forms like "advance
parole" that leave her vulnerable to the whims of the many eccentric
interpreters of U.S. immigration law at the nation's airports and land
borders.
Here's another place where family values stops: The rubble of the World
Trade Center. Deena Gilbey is a British subject whose late husband worked
on the 84th floor: On the morning of Sept. 11, instead of fleeing, he
returned to the building to help evacuate his co-workers. A few days later,
Mrs. Gilbey receives a letter from the INS noting that as she's now widowed
her immigration status has changed and she's obliged to leave the country
along with her two children (both U.S. citizens). Think about that: Having
legally admitted to the country the terrorists who killed her husband, the
U.S. government's first act on having facilitated his murder is to add
insult to grievous injury by serving his widow with a deportation order.
Why should illegal Mexicans be the unique beneficiaries of a sentimental
blather about "family values" to which U.S. immigration is otherwise
notoriously antipathetic?
How about "the jobs Americans won't do"? Most of them would be more
accurately categorized as the jobs American employers won't hire Americans
to do -- that's to say, in a business culture ever more onerously
regulated, the immigration status of one's employees has become one of the
easiest means of controlling costs. I see no reason why this would change,
and given that, as a matter of policy, U.S. illegal-immigration law is not
enforced by the U.S. government, it's hard to know why private employers
should do it.
Meanwhile, U.S. immigration is cracking down on classical violinists. Don't
ask me why. Presumably, Brahms' violin concerto falls into the ever
dwindling category of jobs Americans will do. At any rate, the Halle
Orchestra of Manchester, one of England's great orchestras, has just
canceled its 2007 concerts at Lincoln Center. Why? Because all 80 musicians
plus the 20 support staff are required -- under new "homeland security"
regulations -- to be interviewed personally at the U.S. Embassy in London
before each visa can be issued. They can't go en masse on the tour bus:
They have to make individual appointments stretched out over several weeks.
And they can't go to the local U.S. consulate in Manchester because -- and
this detail is worth savoring five years after 9/11 -- the consulate's
computers cannot handle the biometric data. The orchestra worked out that
in train fares and accommodation it would cost about $80,000 to get the
visas and decided it would rather cancel the tour. The good news is that
Lincoln Center subscribers don't have to worry about the tuba player having
plastic explosives packed down there. The bad news is, if a rogue tuba
player ever breaks through the system, Homeland Security won't be able to
e-mail his data back to the U.S. consulate in Manchester for a background
check.
We're now expected to believe that this system will be able to stop
hassling 68-year-old cello players long enough to process an extra 10
million-plus immigration applications, and that furthermore an agency that
keeps no reliable records of legal entry into the United States will
somehow be able to determine on the basis of utility bills whether this or
that undocumented alien falls into amnesty-eligibility category.
Sure, believe that if you want to. It'll be good practice for swallowing
the amnesty for the next 40 million circa 2025.
6. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/local/states/california/the_valley/14286391.htm
Posted on Fri, Apr. 07, 2006
H-1B visa law criticized
ANALYSIS: PROGRAM GIVES AMERICANS NO PROTECTION, `NEEDS TO BE FIXED'
By K. Oanh Ha
Mercury News
When a Sunnyvale tech company laid off the manager and most of his
colleagues in its reliability testing group a year and a half ago, the
manager said a few employees were spared -- younger, foreign workers on
H-1B visas.
The laid-off manager was infuriated that as an American citizen, he wasn't
given priority over the H-1B employees. The H-1B visa program allows
employers to hire skilled foreign workers when there's a shortage of
available American workers.
``The law does not protect American workers at all,'' said Frank, a
45-year-old Chinese-American who was out of work for five months, and who
insisted his last name and the name of his former company not be published
because he fears repercussions from potential employers. ``It only helps
American businesses and technology companies keep their costs low while
sacrificing American workforce. That's not right.''
As Congress debates nearly doubling the number of highly skilled guest
worker visas next year to 115,000, calls are mounting for an overhaul of
Department of Labor's Foreign Labor Certification program. Critics have
long charged that the foreign-worker program doesn't fulfill its primary
mission: protecting American workers. They want stronger laws to preserve
American jobs and argue the current system is prone to abuse and fraud.
Increasingly, the federal government's reviews and audits of its own
foreign-worker programs are highlighting the same shortcomings.
While tech companies and lobbyists credit the H-1B visas with filling a
crucial shortage of skilled tech labor, workers and their advocates counter
the visas are being used to push Americans out of jobs and depress wages.
A Mercury News examination of little-known government reports and analysis
of H-1B applications supports critics' charges that the program gives U.S.
citizens virtually no protection from being replaced by a foreign worker.
California employers who filed applications seeking to hire H-1B workers
were virtually guaranteed approval. Of nearly 54,000 applications to hire
foreign workers filed by California employers in 2005, only 114 were denied
by the Foreign Labor Certification program. Not all approved applications
resulted in the hiring of a foreign worker or a visa being issued.
Employers are not required to prove that American workers were not
available for those jobs. The Labor Condition Application requires
information about the H-1B position and the wage an employer intends to
pay, which must be at least the prevailing market wage. The law also
doesn't require the labor department to verify that employers actually pay
the wages they stipulate unless there is a complaint.
Of the 3,628 H-1B applications for foreign-worker visas filed last year by
companies in San Jose, only two were denied. In Santa Clara, 3,677
applications brought only three denials.
The Department of Labor ``rubber-stamps the forms that companies send
them,'' said Marcus Courtney, president of WashTech, which represents tech
workers across the country. ``Their hands are tied. They follow the law,
which isn't adequate.''
Officials from the Department of Labor acknowledge that current statute
allows them to reject applications only if there are obvious errors or
omissions.
Feinstein's position
A few legislators acknowledge the issue: ``The problem has been that the
Department of Labor does not really check to see if the company has made
the effort to recruit in the United States,'' wrote Sen. Dianne Feinstein,
D-Calif., in an e-mail. Still, Feinstein supports doubling the number of
visas from the current 65,000. With various exemptions for certain types of
jobs, the actual number of visas would effectively reach nearly 300,000.
``The program needs to be fixed,'' said Ron Hira, a vice president with the
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers-USA in Washington, D.C.
``We don't think raising the cap should be on the table before that
happens.''
Tech-industry lobbyists counter that current rules sufficiently protect
American workers. More H-1Bs are needed to fill the shortage of
professionals with advanced degrees, they argue. Petitions for the entire
2006 allotment of H-1Bs reached the cap last August.
In 2003, nearly 40 percent of the 217,000 H-1B petitions approved that year
were for computer-related jobs.
``I have many executives saying they would love to hire for those positions
from here,'' said Chris Merida, manager of public policy for the American
Engineering Association. ``But . . . the talent is not here.''
In the last decade, numerous government reports have cited problems, but
they have received scant media attention. A 1996 Department of Labor report
was headlined: ``The Department of Labor's Foreign Labor Certification
Programs: The System is Broken and Needs to Be Fixed.''
In its 2005 annual report, the Department of Labor concluded that
``reducing the susceptibility of DOL Foreign Labor Certification programs
to abuse remains a challenge.'' Recent investigations by the department's
Office of the Inspector General ``revealed corrupt employers, labor brokers
and lawyers who file fraudulent applications. The prevalence of these cases
consistently demonstrates the susceptibility of the program to fraud.''
In 2004, a report by the White House's Office of Management and Budget said
the H-1B program is ``vulnerable to fraud or abuse.'' It recommends adding
anti-fraud and audit functions and ``legislative changes . . . to require
employers to test the labor market'' to recruit American workers before
turning to foreign laborers.
Instances of fraud
It also cited problems with the permanent labor program, which allows
employers to hire foreign workers permanently. Investigators found
instances where applications for permanent workers were filed on behalf of
fictitious employees, and where approval paperwork needed to hire foreign
workers was illegally sold. The priority, the report said, was on
processing applications, not rooting out fraud.
Employers admitted to General Accounting Office investigators in 2003 that
they ``hired H-1B workers in part because these workers would often accept
lower salaries than similarly qualified U.S. workers'' -- but they did not
violate the law because they were paying workers at least the ``prevailing
wage'' approved by the Department of Labor.
``The system is broken, worthless,'' said Norm Matloff, a professor at
University of California-Davis and outspoken opponent of the foreign worker
program who has reviewed many of the reports.
``Companies don't need to violate the laws because of the loopholes,'' he
said. ``They can easily violate the spirit of the law. That's fraud to
me.''
Frank, the laid-off test manager, found work at a tech start-up but is
concerned where the industry is heading. When he became a naturalized
citizen in 1998, ``I thought it would give me more rights,'' he said. ``The
reality is that the opportunities are for the foreigners.''
7. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://www.pww.org/article/articleview/9039/1/319
CWA hits high-tech visas
Author: Roberta Wood
People's Weekly World Newspaper, 04/28/06 12:34
Spotlighting an aspect of the nations immigration debate that has
received little attention, the Communications Workers executive board voted
April 18 to lobby against a guest worker program which allows employers to
create a temporary workforce of tens of thousands of lower-paid high-tech
"guest workers."
Under the H1-B program, employers are allotted visas that they control to
hire programmers, software engineers, technical writers and other highly
skilled workers from other countries. The employers use those guest
workers, the CWA says, "to turn tens of thousands of permanent, good paying
jobs into temporary jobs." H1-B visa workers have no path to citizenship.
CWA reports that the H1-B workers are paid substantially less than U.S.
tech workers. The union is supporting a bill sponsored by Rep. Bill
Pascrell (D-N.J.) that caps the number of H1-B visas issued and includes a
provision requiring employers to pay workers on these visas prevailing
wages, similar to the Davis-Bacon Act.
The executive board resolution blasted President George W. Bushs plan to
expand all guest worker programs and said all immigrant workers to the U.S.
should be provided a path to legalization.
The CWA has mounted organizing drives among high-tech workers, especially
in the telecommunications and computer industries. But it frequently
encounters employers who abuse the high-tech "H1-B" program. Expanding the
H1-B program is the top legislative priority of Microsoft Corp., according
to the website of WashTech, CWAs Washington state-based union for
high-tech workers.
"Workers rights must be at the heart of immigration reform. Thats why
it is critical that Congress reject the Bush administration efforts to
expand guest worker programs, particularly the H-1B program and
related visas provided to employers for technology workers," CWA said.
The high-tech guest worker visa program undermines the incentive of
employers to conduct training programs, CWA spokesperson Jeff Miller noted.
rwood@pww.org
PAI contributed to this report.
8. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://www.courant.com/news/opinion/editorials/hc-skilled.artapr21,0,6811563.story?coll=hc-headlines-editorials
Not Enough Skilled Workers
April 21 2006
Only about half of this country's college graduates in science, math,
technology and engineering disciplines are born in the United States. At
the postgraduate level, it gets worse.
In 2003, an astounding 59 percent of the doctorates in engineering at U.S.
schools went to foreigners, according to the National Science Foundation.
The paucity of American students may be confirmed in visits to the science
halls of the University of Connecticut, Yale or any other major institution
of higher education.
This demographic fact has serious consequences. In certain critical fields,
U.S. employers rely on foreigners to help augment their high-skilled and
best-paid workforce. Without them, companies either delay new projects or
move research and development operations to countries where qualified
workers are able and eager.
The imbalance didn't develop suddenly. Educators and politicians have been
talking about the shortage of high-skilled workers for decades. They have
yet to fix the problem.
The search for solutions doesn't require expertise in rocket science. It
demands the formulation of a two-pronged strategy.
Long-term: A well-financed, decade-long campaign to encourage more students
in the sciences and associated fields would make America more self-reliant.
Government, businesses and households would have to be participants in the
drive to emphasize math and sciences in the classroom.
Reading and writing skills would not have to be sacrificed to raise the
sciences to a higher position on the educational scale. Other countries
have succeeded in that effort, and so can we.
In America, math and sciences are tagged as the difficult subjects best
tackled by the few nerds. At least that's the image, which didn't develop
in a vacuum.
Why not require high school students to take three or four years of science
and math, serve an internship and work on a research project? Most other
industrial countries do this.
Inadequate attention to the "hard" subjects in elementary and secondary
schools means fewer students interested in those subjects in college. It
also means a smaller number of math and science teachers. No wonder public
schools struggle to hire well-qualified faculty in those fields.
Beefing up education in the sciences would not yield quick results, but it
would set the nation on the proper course.
Short-term: Expand the pool of high-skilled foreign workers admitted to the
United States.
U.S. law permits only 65,000 visas to such workers each year. After three
years, they must leave, even if their employers are unable to replace them
with Americans. The demand is far greater than the supply. Therefore,
companies consider moving projects elsewhere or simply suspending them.
A section in immigration legislation before Congress would expand the pool
of three-year visas to 114,000. More important, it would exempt
U.S.-educated advanced-degree holders in science, technology, engineering
and math from the cap. They would be put on a separate path to citizenship
if they choose to stay in the United States after finishing postgraduate
education.
These changes would serve the nation's interests until we get serious about
math and science education. If Americans want to stay in the top reaches of
engineering and technology, they must put a higher value on classroom work
- beginning in grade school. Otherwise, our companies will look elsewhere
for skilled workers or set up shop in other countries.
This shouldn't be a tough sell.
9. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://www.mlive.com/news/grpress/index.ssf?/base/news-1/11453721608340.xml&coll=6#continue
or
http://www.competeamerica.org/editorials/20060418_gr.html
Fencing out skills
Tuesday, April 18, 2006
Lost in the ongoing political uproar over illegal immigrants is a separate
immigration issue that should cross partisan boundaries. America, certainly
including Michigan, needs to lower barriers to highly skilled immigrant
workers who are sorely needed by U.S. industry.
If Congress' stalemate over illegal immigration blocks needed relief on
this legal immigration situation, the consequences will be damaging for the
U.S. economy and for many thousands of employers. At least two Senate bills
would permit more specialized foreign workers to come to the United States
and more foreign students, educated in U.S. colleges, to remain here.
The changes don't aim at taking jobs from Americans. The purpose is to fill
vacancies on U.S. payrolls and to enable U.S. companies to continue their
technical work without moving overseas to hire technical staffs. The
current annual limit on people coming into the United States on H-1B guest
worker visas is 65,000. That's down from the cap of 195,000 that was in
place from 2001-2003 but which then expired. U.S. employers say they can
use tens of thousands more foreign specialists each year. The qualifying
immigrants would be in such fields as engineering, computer programming,
medical research and biochemistry -- all fields that Michigan and Grand
Rapids need to cultivate to develop a new, more sustainable economy.
Letting more skilled workers in would be unlikely to put any U.S. citizen
in an unemployment line. Last month's U.S. jobless rate for workers with at
least a college degree was 2.2 percent. On the other hand, keeping the cap
low would push more U.S. employers to shift
operations abroad where technical workers are available.
The bill authored by the Senate Judiciary Committee would lift the cap to
115,000 workers in science, engineering and other specialty areas and
permit the cap to float according to demand for workers. In other
worker-short fields, such as physical therapy and nursing, longer stays
also would be permitted. And the bill would help technically-educated
foreign students remain in the country after graduation, an alternative to
sending them and their U.S.-honed skills away, likely to serve competitor
nations.
The ultimate solution to the skilled-worker problem, of course, is for more
Americans to seek careers in technical and scientific fields and for U.S.
schools to put greater emphasis on math and science as well as on nursing
and other health-services occupations.
For sure, the demand for technical expertise won't ease. Nor will the
global economy soon shrink or otherwise relieve the United States of the
need to compete worldwide. America can compete but not
if the needed workers are
standing at the gates, or being sent off to make their livings
in South Korea, India or South America.
Michigan's Sens. Carl Levin, D-Detroit, and Debbie Stabenow, D-Lansing,
should do what they can to move an immigration bill forward in the Senate
and to make sure that a skilled worker provision is included. Better that
U.S. companies be permitted to do their hiring here than to have them move
their jobs overseas.
10. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://eastbay.bizjournals.com/eastbay/stories/2006/04/17/daily44.html
Bush meets with Bay Area business leaders
East Bay Business Times - April 21, 2006by Timothy Roberts
President George W. Bush came to San Jose Friday to tout his strategy for
keeping America competitive in the world economy.
He spoke in the afternoon to an invitation-only audience, on a panel led by
San Jose-based Cisco Systems Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO) chief executive John
Chambers.
Aart de Geus, the chairman and chief executive of Mountain View-based
Synopsys Inc. (NASDAQ: SNPS), a maker of microchip design software, said he
hoped the president would show "conviction" - indicating that he would
follow through with any promises. He said he also hoped the president would
address immigration reform and commit to increasing the number of H1-B
visas from the current limit of 65,000 to 105,000 or more.
Added Carl Guardino, president and chief executive of the Silicon Valley
Leadership Group, "We're not looking for a date, we're looking for a
marriage."
California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who also was on the panel, was
expected to speak with the president in private about funding to repair the
state's levees.
Roberts is a reporter for the Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal.
11. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2006/04/21/BUGGKICDG41.DTL&type=business
Talking tough on tech
President in Silicon Valley today to tout competitiveness
- Tom Abate, Chronicle Staff Writer
Friday, April 21, 2006
When President Bush visits Cisco Systems headquarters in San Jose this
afternoon he will return to a theme that he first struck in his State of
the Union address: America could lose its competitive edge unless it
retools math and science education, spends more on basic science, and
provides permanent tax credits for private sector research.
To keep America from losing its advantage, the president has proposed a
series of fixes that he calls the American Competitiveness Initiative. The
White House says his appearance at Cisco will be a panel discussion that
should allow Silicon Valley leaders to interact with him on their views of
the nation's predicament. But Bush made his sentiments clear in two similar
speeches delivered earlier this week.
"So here's the problem we face," Bush said Wednesday at Alabama's Tuskegee
University. "Are we going to be a nation which can compete in a globalized
world?"
Tuesday he told an audience at a middle school in Rockville, Md., that
rapidly industrializing nations like China were gaining ground not just in
manufacturing but in design and engineering. "We can either look at China
and say, 'Let's compete with China in a fair way,' or say, 'We can't
compete with China' and therefore kind of isolate ourselves from the
world,'' he said.
There is broad support in the Senate for three related bills that would
boost expenditures for research and for science and math training, and give
U.S. companies permanent tax credits for research and development, all
proposals cheered by Silicon Valley.
The panel discussion format will allow tech leaders to raise issues the
president did not mention in his speeches earlier this week -- letting
high-tech companies hire more high-skilled workers from abroad under
temporary visas, as well as change immigration law to let foreign students
remain here after getting sought-after degrees from U.S. universities.
"We're talking about immigration reform as the immediate fix," said Andrea
Hoffman, a public policy official with TechNet, the influential lobby group
co-founded by Cisco chief executive John Chambers, who is hosting the
president's visit.
"It will be very interesting to see in the context of the current
immigration debate whether the president brings it up at all,'' said U.S.
Rep. George Miller, D-Martinez, who last fall helped House Minority Leader
Nancy Pelosi launch what Democrats call the Innovation Agenda. Their plan
includes measures similar to those Bush has since proposed, plus other
elements not on the president's agenda.
And therein lies the rub. While there has grown to be near-universal
agreement in corporate, academic and political circles that America needs a
new recipe for competitiveness or innovation, there is not yet consensus on
the precise ingredients.
William Archey, president of the high-tech trade association AeA, said he
worries that, despite broad agreement on the principles, election year
politics will make it tough for lawmakers to deliver.
"Congress has become so partisan over the last 10 years that it's very
difficult to cross the aisle and talk about a common good,'' he said.
Yet high-tech leaders believe lawmakers will eventually work out the
formulas given the intensity of interest focused on whether the United
States will continue to have the right stuff to prosper in the 21st
century.
"Now you've seen the president get behind it as well as the Democratic
leadership,'' said James Jarrett, government affairs official for Intel
Corp. "This is an issue whose time has come."
The Innovate America Web site, produced by the private Council on
Competitiveness, lists a slew of reports going back several years all
warning that the United States was not teaching its youngsters enough
science and math, nor training enough specialists and engineers to sustain
an economy increasingly dependent on the rapid introduction of products
with brief shelf lives.
But what arguably brought the issue to a boil was an October 2005 National
Academies report, "Rising Above the Gathering Storm." Written by prominent
academic and business leaders including Intel Chairman Craig Barrett, it
noted that India and China together graduated 13 times as many engineers as
the United States in 2004 and recommended a slew of fixes that more or less
set the baseline for the current debate.
In November, House Democrats led by Pelosi unveiled their Innovation
Agenda, which built on the National Academies' prescriptions for programs
that included teacher training, math and science education, a long-term
increase in basic federal funding for the physical sciences, and a
permanent tax credit for corporate-sponsored research and development.
Democrats also proposed specific funding to promote clean and alternative
energy research, and for federal support to extend broadband Internet
access in rural and other underserved areas.
When Bush articulated the competitiveness theme in his January State of the
Union address it put the long-simmering issue on the nation's front burner.
High-tech observers say the best hope for quick legislative action on
portions of the proposed fixes lies in three related Senate bills that have
attracted bipartisan support -- and more than 60 co-sponsors.
The three acts, commonly titled Protecting America's Competitive Edge,
would boost federal funding for the basic sciences, beef up math and
science education, create a special visa category for foreign doctoral
students with high-tech skills, and both increase and make permanent the
R&D tax credit -- which is now renewed on an annual basis.
"It's moving in the Senate and the president is leading the charge,'' said
Lezlee Westine, president of TechNet and a former White House aide who once
worked for Bush adviser Karl Rove.
But in the House, the package appears stalled by internal Republican
dissension about how to deal with the nation's growing fiscal deficits.
"The politics of this are interesting,'' said Peter Harsha, director of
government affairs for the Computing Research Association, a nonprofit
policy group in Washington.
"The Senate is on board. The House Democrats are on board,'' Harsha said.
"But the House leadership has real concerns about any increase in
discretionary spending."
Pelosi's office said the minority leader wrote the White House in February
offering to collaborate but has not yet received a reply.
Meanwhile, the tech-industry still hopes to persuade Congress that the
fixes should include allowing U.S. firms to bring in more skilled foreign
workers under temporary H-1B visas. These are now limited to 65,000 a year.
Tech leaders want that increased to 115,000 with a mechanism to adjust the
number depending on labor market conditions.
"We're trying to attract the best and brightest from around the world,''
said Hoffman, the TechNet policy director.
But the recent collapse of the larger immigration reform efforts derailed
those provisions. Hoffman said even if the broad effort to overhaul
immigration continues to be stalled, the industry expects that Sen. John
Coryn, R-Texas, will introduce legislation that addresses the high-tech
visa issues.
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