This week, President Bush gave his final State of the Union Address to Congress, framing his policy agenda for the next year. He focused part of the address on the economic position of the United States and mentioned the pending economic stimulus package now working its way through the legislative process; called upon Congress to pass through pending trade agreements with Colombia, Panama, and Korea; and again urged Congress to increase the funding for research. These mentions directly reflect TIA's own recent efforts on Capitol Hill to bring some of our biggest issues to the forefront of current legislation.
This week, TIA President Grant Seiffert requested President Bush's assistance in the coming year in promoting TIA's information and communications technology (ICT) policy framework. Related to the basic premise of TIA's advocacy, Seiffert applauded Bush's efforts throughout his two terms to cultivate an environment that promotes innovation and economic expansion and restated TIA's goals of promoting them through the wireless and broadband, as well as increased competition in the voice, video and data markets.
Seiffert asked for Bush's support of an overriding goal of increased investment by encouraging policies that ensure access for people with disabilities, advocating forward-looking spectrum management policy on a technology-neutral basis, increasing funding for communications research, facilitating open markets for U.S. companies abroad, increasing attention to first-responder and public safety issues, and passage of the pending trade agreements with Colombia, Panama and Korea. The letter reiterated TIA's commitment to improved data collection and full disclosure of broadband capabilities by carriers, and touched on some points from the letter to the House, including tax incentives for broadband deployment.
TIA also appealed to the U.S. House of Representatives to advocate for technology's role in the pending stimulus package. In a letter written jointly with with a wide coalition of association presidents, TIA President Grant Seiffert applauded Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Cal.) and House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) for working together to develop the package, but expressed the tech industry's increasing concern that the items under discussion address only consumer spending rather than more fundamental challenges to the U.S. economy.
The letter made four timely, targeted recommendations for measures to be included in any stimulus package aimed at restarting America's economic growth engine: 1) Dramatically increasing national efforts in research and development (R&D), including a two-year extension of the R&D tax credit and basic R&D funding; 2) Directing the benefits of technology toward the environment and healthcare, two significant challenges in the coming years – this would include bold tax incentives to stimulate breakthroughs in the way technology functions in both areas; 3) Ensuring that U.S. "STEM" education – science, technology, engineering and math – allows the country to develop and attract the best and brightest minds in the world; and 4) Rework the tax system to allow American companies to reinvest their overseas profits into the U.S. economy – such an effort was successful in 2004 in bringing about $200 billion in overseas capital back into the United States.
TIA continues to monitor action on the Hill surrounding these significant tech issues that so powerfully affect the U.S. economy.
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