Election '08: Seeking a 'Tech President'

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Senator Clinton has proposed creating a $50 billion national alternative-energy investment fund and increasing basic research budgets at key federal agencies by 50% over the next decade. Senator Obama has posited wider broadband penetration as a way to create job opportunities for the urban poor and says he'll overhaul fees the government charges phone companies to pay for it. McCain favors peeling back layers of Federal Communications Commission regulations to promote competition in Internet services.

Below is a closer look at how the major candidates for president stack up on issues important to the tech industry, including research and development spending, patent law reform, the foreign-worker visa shortage, math and science education, and telecommunications regulation.

Federal R&D Funding

Allocating more government money to basic scientific research is a big priority for Microsoft, HP, Intel, and other tech companies that benefit when breakthroughs create new markets for products. "There's a growing awareness that we can't take [U.S.] economic preeminence as a given," says James Jarrett, vice-president for legal and corporate affairs at Intel. But federal funding for the National Science Foundation, the National Institute of Standards & Technology, and other agencies has been stagnant for several years.

To address the concern, President George W. Bush in August signed the America Competes Act, which allocates $22 billion to the NSF, $17 billion to the Energy Dept.'s Office of Science, and $2.7 billion to NIST from 2008 to 2010, with a goal of eventually doubling the agencies' budgets. Congress still needs to appropriate the money, which means tech companies are reacting cautiously. "It's an important step," says Jack Krumholtz, managing director of federal government affairs at Microsoft. "More funding for basic research primes the pump for a virtuous cycle of innovation."

Boosting federal research spending is at the heart of Clinton's technology agenda. In addition to the alternative-energy fund and support for increases in R&D budgets at the departments of Defense and Energy and the NSF, she has called for federal agencies to set aside at least 8% of their research budgets for high-risk exploratory work, citing Defense Dept. research that led to the creation of the Internet and the global positioning system. Clinton says she would also promote collaborative research among the computer, biotech, and nanotechnology industries.

Obama has joined Clinton in calling for the government to make permanent a corporate tax credit for new R&D spending that is usually renewed annually by Congress. Edwards has proposed an alternative-energy fund to promote wind and solar power, and biofuel to make cars and trucks more efficient. Romney has said the country needs to invest heavily in new technology for power generation, nanotechnology, and creating new industrial materials.

Patent Reform

The tech sector wants Congress to pass a law that would curb what it considers frivolous, innovation-stifling litigation by patent holders. It's HP's No. 1 lobbying priority and also a key plank in Microsoft's Washington agenda. The House of Representatives passed a patent-reform bill Sept. 7 that could limit damage awards in infringement cases and improve the quality of awarded patents. A similar version is pending in the Senate. Pharmaceutical and biotech companies such as Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) and Amgen (AMGN) and cell-phone chipmaker Qualcomm (QCOM) oppose the House bill because they say it weakens protection for patents in their portfolios.

Obama, Edwards, and McCain have been most explicit on patent reform. Obama's campaign says such a law would promote more scientific research and discourage excessive litigation.