Posted on 02/04/2006 4:38:34 AM PST by Tyche
Making a strong pitch for America to stay competitive in the face of emerging economies such as India and China, President George W Bush has urged the Congress to raise the number of H-1B visas that allow companies to hire foreign workers for scientific and high tech jobs.
"Congress needs to understand that nations like India, China, Japan, Korea and Canada all offer tax incentives that are permanent. In other words, we live in a competitive world. We want to be the leader in this world," Bush said in a speech in Minnesota on Thursday.
To fill vacant jobs in the US, Bush urged the Congress to lift current limit on H-1B visas that allow foreign workers to get jobs in the United States. The Congress in 2005 capped at 65,000 the number of H-1B visas, a third of the 195,000 allowed during the technology boom.
"I think it's a mistake not to encourage more really bright folks who can fill the jobs that are having trouble being filled here in America, to limit their number. So I call upon Congress to be realistic and reasonable and raise that cap," Bush said, but did not say by how much he wanted the limit lifted.
He said that one part of the agenda to stay competitive was to study math and science, a theme he touched on in his State of the Union Address on Tuesday.
"It's one thing to research, but if you don't have somebody in that lab, well… And so I got some ideas for the Congress to consider. The first is to emphasize math and science early, and to make sure that the courses are rigorous enough that our children can compete globally," Bush said in a speech at the 3M Corporation.
He said there are more high-tech jobs in America today than people available to fill them. "So what do we do about that? And the reason it's important -- and the American citizen has got to understand it's important -- is if we don't do something about how to fill those high-tech jobs here, they'll go somewhere else where somebody can do the job."
"There are some who say, we can't worry about competition. It doesn't matter, it's here. It's a real aspect of the world in which we live," he said.
"And so one way to deal with this problem, and probably the most effective way, is to recognize that there's a lot of bright engineers and chemists and physicists from other lands that are either educated here, or received an education elsewhere but want to work here. And they come here under a programme called H1B visas," Bush said.
He said America should not fear competition. "It's important for us not to lose our confidence in changing times. It's important for us not to fear competition but welcome it."
Senior administration officials noted that the number of H-1B visas has fallen to 65,000 which in their estimation was 'too low' and that it was imperative 'to bump that up.'
". . . some of reports have called for increases of 10,000; others between 20,000 and 40,000. So there is a number of options on the table to be considered. But we'll work with Congress on that," said Claude Allen, assistant to the President for domestic policy.
I do support trade unions, it is one of the reasons I left Communist Poland.
Why do you pretend to be a conservative?
No, it is you and your freemarketeering friends who wrongly believe to be conservative. Free market ideology is not conservative but revolutionary and destructive.
Please ignore my last post to you...or not; it was meant for another poster.
And now you want to recreate Communism here.
Free market ideology is not conservative but revolutionary and destructive.
Your big government alternative to free trade is destructive.
Real (not government controlled) trade unions have nothing to do with Communism.
Your big government alternative to free trade is destructive.
Somehow with all this "free" trade the government is growing. How came that Founding Fathers have seen the tariffs as the key source of federal budget? Are you able to explain that?
And you'd give the government more money, to stop rich people from getting "too rich".
How came that Founding Fathers have seen the tariffs as the key source of federal budget? Are you able to explain that?
Yes. They didn't want an income tax.
I too enjoy it, Art is great.
Federal income tax came much later, I seriously doubt that they even considered that! You are projecting present into the past.
I would like you to explain why they liked tariffs to do the job?
Dang it! Somebody make up their mind! My two oldest excel in math and science and I was encouraged by the President's urge to get the USA more competitive in those fields. Now, we are going to bring more foreigners who won't leave to fill the gap?
Mr. George - very unusual name, I think. Mascomoment Regional High School, Plymouth Whitemarsh HS. Massachusetts, Pennsylvania - any connection?
Not at all.
(Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.) (The previous sentence in parentheses was superseded by Amendment XIV, section 2.)
If you don't understand what this means, I can explain it to you.
I would like you to explain why they liked tariffs to do the job?
Maybe you can tell me what other good source of revenue they had at the time?
You are trying to wiggle away. OK, they liked tariffs because they wanted to protect American independence. See the tagline.
Do you care about American independence?
So, you couldn't answer? Understand the section of the Constitution I posted?
Agree. It took me about six weeks to pick up Ada (a stupid language), with a good background in C, APL, Algol, Basic, BAL, various assembly languages, Fortran, Lisp, etc. Non-programmers don't understand that producing the syntax of a computer language is a simple skill, but the implementation of non-trivial, useful, functioning software in any computer language is the challenge.
Bonus March! That's so 1930s. Besides we already know it doesn't work. Bureacrats and oligarchs have no shame, no point trying to make them feel guilty...
It was my question and you are using the Red Herring tactic. Understand the tagline below?
These don't keep a country at the forefront of engineering. They generally retard that growth.
Engineers are not lawyers or bankers. Can't even think that way. We mastered math, and science in 4+ year degrees, then honed these skills through experiance. What I do is still needed ... it was not made obsolete.
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