Increased innovation, a crackdown on piracy, and H-1B visas? Good. Taxes on tech companies, Net neutrality legislation, and our country's current patent system? Bad.Republican presidential hopeful John McCain on Thursday unveiled his technology policy statement. It did not stray far from his already established positions on major tech issues like Net neutrality, patent protection and piracy, broadband availability, privacy, and the availability of H1B visas, but focused mainly on increased innovation, intellectual property protection, and preserving technology through market forces.
Net neutrality is "prescriptive regulation" in which McCain does not believe, according to the policy statement. McCain instead supports "an open marketplace with a variety of consumer choices."
"McCain will focus on policies that leave consumers free to access the content they choose; free to use the applications and services they choose; free to attach devices they choose, if they do not harm the network; and free to chose among broadband service providers," he said.
How does one maintain that open marketplace? Lower taxes. McCain pushed for lower capital gains taxes, pointing specifically to companies trying to build clean energy technologies as an industry that might see the current capital gains structures as a disincentive for investment.
McCain also issued his support for a permanent research and development (R&D) tax credit equal to 10 percent of wages spent on R&D, lowering the corporate tax rate to 25 percent, allowing companies to expense the costs of new equipment or technology in the first year of operation, no Internet access taxes, and no increases on wireless taxes.
McCain also pledged to "expand the number of H-1B visas" though he did not elaborate on how many people that might include. http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2328171,00.asp
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