Obama's Technology Platform

Date: Tuesday, November 20, 2007 4:23 PM

<<<<< JOB DESTRUCTION NEWSLETTER No. 1785 -- 11/20/2007 >>>>>

Presidential candidate Barack Obama recently came out with a technology
platform. The platform is rather vague when it comes to what he intends on
doing about H-1B -- all it says is that he wants "improvement in our visa
programs", whatever that means.

There are some rather weird statements that most H-1Bs earned a bachelor's
degree or its equivalent from abroad, which would tend to support my argument
that H-1Bs aren't the best or the brightest. Obama doesn't seem to see the
contradiction, and he ignores a host of recent studies such as the one from
the Urban Institute that show we are graduating more science and engineering
students than the job market needs.

Obama is far less vague on the issue of fast-track green cards for foreign
students who earn U.S. degrees -- he wants more of them. It's somewhat
semantic to argue over whether we need more green cards or H-1B visas because
either way when foreign workers are brought here the job opportunities for
Americans are reduced. Obama's platform doesn't show any concern or empathy
for the American high-tech workers he will force into unemployment.

I suspect that Obama's platform was influenced by Wade Randlett, who worked as
a fund raiser for the Obama campaign. Randlett has also been an adviser for
TechNet, a powerful Silicon Valley lobbying group has been a key player in
lobbying efforts for increasing the H-1B cap. This is just one more sordid
example of the revolving doors in today's politics.

This newsletter is the first part of several that focus on Obama. His position
on H-1B will become crystal clear by the time the next two of this series is
published.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

http://www.barackobama.com/issues/technology/

5. Improve America's Competitiveness

Reform Immigration: While highly skilled immigrants have contributed in
beneficial ways to our domestic technology industry, there are plenty of
Americans who could be filling those positions given the proper training.
Barack Obama is committed to investing in communities and people who have not
had an opportunity to work and participate in the Internet economy as
anything other than consumers. Most H-1B new arrivals, for example, have
earned a bachelor's degree or its equivalent abroad (42.5%). They are not all
PhDs. We can and should produce more Americans with bachelor's degrees that
lead to jobs in technology. A report of the National Science Foundation (NSF)
reveals that blacks, Hispanics, and Native Americans as a whole comprise more
that 25% of the population but earn, as a whole, 16% of the bachelor degrees,
11% of the master's degrees, and 5% of the doctorate degrees in science and
engineering. We can do better than that and go a long way toward meeting
industry's need for skilled workers with Americans.
That being said, we do not want to shut our doors to innovators from overseas,
who have traditionally helped make America strong. Barack Obama supports
comprehensive immigration reform that includes improvement in our visa
programs, including our legal permanent resident visa programs and temporary
programs including the H-1B program, to attract some of the world's most
talented people to America. We should allow immigrants who earn their degrees
in the U.S. to stay, work, and become Americans over time. And we should
examine our ability to increase the number of permanent visas we issue to
foreign skilled workers. Obama will work to ensure immigrant workers are less
dependent on their employers for their right to stay in the country and would
hold accountable employers who abuse the system and their workers.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Newsletter Homepage:
http://www.JobDestruction.com/shameh1b/JobDestructionNews.htm

Support this Newsletter and www.JobDestruction.com by donating:
www.zazona.com/Donations.htm

To Be removed from this mailing list, reply to this email with UNSUbSCRIBE in
the subject window

Back to archives