CompTIA Announces Top 8 Legislative Priorities for '08

Business Wire, Feb 25, 2008

WASHINGTON -- CompTIA today outlined its top eight priorities for the coming legislative year. Centered on themes of workforce, innovation, and small business, these specific calls for action will each in lean fashion boost the strength of the American economy, its small businesses, U.S. laborers and our tech leadership.

The top eight priorities include:

Invest in our workforce

* Extend Trade Adjustment Assistance coverage to U.S. service workers

* Pass tax incentives for IT training

* Increase H-1B visa caps

Promote innovation

* Pass common-sense patent reform for 21st Century IT companies

* Make permanent the R&D tax credit

* Expedite the use of "White Space" spectrum

Invest in our small businesses

* Pass "small business healthcare plans"

* Make permanent current small business IT expensing deductions

"The Second Session of Congress will be jammed, for sure," noted Roger Cochetti, Group Director of U.S. Public Policy for CompTIA. "Does that mean we should just give up now and wait until after the elections? Heck, no. The plate's still full from the 109th Congress. We've served it up. We hope Congress has brought its appetite."

Added Cochetti, "For the tech industry, these proposals represent the main course, but a frugal one at that. With only modest federal investments in our workforce, innovation and small businesses, we know the U.S. economy can be beefed up in a sustainable manner. Importantly, our menu of proposals keeps Congress off the fat farm by helping American businesses and laborers stay more dynamic, productive and viable. In other words - it'll generate immense economic activity, while simultaneously ensuring that the Federal budget needn't let out another belt loop."