Tech group hails $100 billion stimulus spending on IT

A leading technology lobbying group welcomed the billions of dollars in stimulus funds for technology, but denounced a clause in the law that would restrict the ability of companies receiving federal bailout funds from hiring highly skilled foreign workers.

Officials with TechAmerica praised President Obama's technology agenda and said their estimate of the $100 billion in IT funds included in the stimulus package would encourage the long-term growth of the U.S. technology industry.

"Technology is the driving force in the economy," said Chris Hansen, chief executive officer of TechAmerica, "I think President Obama gets it. He understands technology. Technology will make our whole economy competitive."

Hansen said Obama, in his Feb. 24 speech to Congress, outlined three main priorities education, energy and health care, all of which rely on technology.

"There is a confluence of interests between our organization and the president," Hansen said. "We can use technology to get our economy out of the doldrums."

The association took issue with the law's restrictions on companies receiving funds under the Treasury Department's Troubled Assets Relief Program to hire foreign workers on H1-B visas. "Anything that makes it harder for companies to get the talent they need is a problem for the industry," Hansen said. Several top technology companies, including Yahoo!, Google and Sun Microsystems, were founded co-founded by foreign nationals, he noted.

"These people create jobs, they bring capability to the country," said Josh Lamel, head of federal government affairs at TechAmerica. He said a large portion of the United States' scientific innovation in the 1930s was driven by German scientists such as Albert Einstein. "It's a big problem," he said. "The goal is to have the best and brightest here. The policy is misguided."

Lamel said every student who gets a degree in an American University should be able to stay in the country: "They should staple a green card to every diploma."

Nevertheless, stimulus funds have energized the technology community and states are reaching out for guidance on how to spend the money, said Roxanne Gould, head of TechAmerica's state governmental affairs. California has created a task force to examine how to spend stimulus funds to modernize schools, develop electronic health records and consolidate its network of IT systems. The state estimates it will save as much as $1.5 billion from consolidating networks, according to Gould.

The stimulus also includes nearly $7 billion to expand the availability of broadband access to rural and underserved communities, an issue at the top of TechAmerica's agenda. Hansen said the United States is lagging other countries in terms of the amount of broadband coverage and the speed of the service. When asked if the money would be enough, he replied, "It's never enough."

Only seven of the 50 states have broadband maps indicating where coverage extends, so the stimulus funds would likely be targeted towards those states, Hansen said. The seven states are: Kentucky, Virginia, Vermont, Iowa, North Carolina, Delaware and Massachusetts. Minnesota, California and Ohio are close to completing maps, Lamel said.

TechAmerica expects newly appointed chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, Julius Genachowski, to present a plan within one year on how to expand coverage to the rest of the country.

"We're trying to bring in as many people as possible to the broader economy," Hansen said. "We're seeing a massive amount of innovation in this space."