-Caveat Lector- ------- Forwarded Message Follows ------- Date sent: Fri, 19 Nov 1999 15:44:59 -0500 The DLC Update Friday, November 19, 1999 ************************************************************************* Discuss the Idea of the Week at the DLC Idea Exchange at http://www.dlc.org/idea/discussion.htm ************************************************************************* ***Idea of the Week: T-Visas*** There are currently an estimated 346,000 American job vacancies for computer programmers, systems analysts, and computer scientists or engineers. These core information technology occupations are central to the New Economy, and to the productivity gains and economic growth it is driving. Yet every year many thousands of foreign students earn advanced degrees from U.S. universities in fields related to these occupations and then go home because their student visas run out. Under current law, the only visa you can get for skilled work in the United States is the H-1B visa, available not just to high-tech professionals but to a wide variety of skilled occupations, including pastry chefs, physical therapists, and even fashion models. These visas are capped at levels well below the demand from U.S. employers. Last year, Congress temporarily raised the H-1B cap after urgent requests from technology companies, and also made a small down payment on building up the skills of American citizens by endowing regional skills alliances and other training efforts. Now New Democrat Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) and Sen. Chuck Robb (D-VA) have introduced bills to address the tech-shortage issue more systematically. Lofgren's BRAIN Act (HR 2687), and Robb's HITEC Act (S 1645), would create a "T-Visa"--a new category separate from the models and the pastry chefs, aimed at temporarily recruiting highly paid and skilled tech professionals trained at U.S. universities. Under both bills, T-Visas would be available only to graduates in science and engineering programs filling jobs paying more than $60,000. Most ingeniously, the bills would require that employers hiring T-Visa holders pay a fee of $1,000 per year, with the proceeds used to fund science and technology training efforts for U.S. citizens from kindergarten through high school. Both bills would sunset the T-Visa system in five years, so that Congress could then determine if U.S. citizens are able to fill more of the demand for critical technology skills. Robb's bill limits T-Visas to those holding graduate degrees--where dependence on foreign students is especially high--and would use the "challenge grant" approach of regional training alliances (RSAs) to distribute the fees, with the federal government partnering with industry and educational institutions in training efforts. (For more on RSAs, see the Idea of the Week from February 6, 1998, at http://www.dlcppi.org/fax/1998/980206.htm.) The T-Visa is an excellent plan for "lifting the cap" of immigration restrictions on critical professions, while "filling the gap" of skilled Americans. Lofgren and Robb's bills should be high on Congress' agenda next year. ***Deal of the Decade*** Last week, U.S. trade officials announced the culmination of 13 years of negotiations to open China to U.S. goods, services, and investment. In a deal to secure U.S. support for China's accession to the World Trade Organization, China made a wide variety of concessions on tariffs, non-tariff trade barriers, distribution rights, foreign investment, financial and insurance services, and "transparency" and monitoring of its commercial behavior. The United States made no concessions, other than agreeing to continue on a permanent basis our current policy of offering China Normal Trade Relations. It's good news for the businesses, farmers, and workers who will begin to benefit from new markets almost immediately, and even better news for those interested in bringing this emerging superpower into a rules-based system of trade. That is why we are concerned at signs that a variety of forces on the left and right are indicating they will pressure Congress to kill the deal of the decade by voting down NTR next year. Some opponents think the United States should refuse to do business with China unless it halts its human rights abuses and essentially changes its political system. Others want to isolate China as a potential threat to U.S. security interests in the Pacific. We are especially disappointed that the AFL-CIO issued a strident statement denouncing the deal as an act of submission to China and a betrayal of the Clinton Administration's policy of making workers' rights a subject of discussion in the WTO. It's pretty hard to see how a deal in which the other side makes all the concessions represents submission. It's also hard to identify a better strategy for encouraging civilized behavior by China than to bring it into the circle of civilized nations, where its conduct can be monitored, evaluated, and sanctioned. But more to the point, killing NTR now would not keep China out of the WTO or hurt its economy: It would simply deny Americans the benefits of their concessions, even as other countries reap them. A more classic example of "cutting off one's nose to spite one's own face" is hard to imagine. For further information about the DLC's work on trade and the WTO, please visit our web site at http://www.dlc.org/trade/issues.htm. ***Back to the 80s?*** In an interview with the Washington Post, Donna Brazile, Vice President Al Gore's campaign manager, explained the Veep's nomination strategy as focused on identifying with, energizing, and mobilizing seven distinct constituency groups. "The four pillars of the Democratic Party are African Americans, labor, women and what I call other ethnic minorities," she said. "The emerging constituencies are environmentalists, gays and lesbians, and those with physical disabilities." This is why, Brazile explained, Gore has been spending so much time at events tailored to such constituencies. This "base constituency group" strategy was central to the failed Democratic presidential campaigns of the 1980s. By contrast, the Clinton-Gore victories in 1992 and 1996 focused on a broad message based on common values and new ideas that appealed both to the "base" and to the swing voters who usually decide elections. This idea--and--value based strategy is increasingly well-suited for the politics of the Information Age. Some might say that a candidate like Gore can pursue the "base constituency group" strategy to win the nomination, and then "pivot" to a broader appeal to swing voters later on. But as the Mondale and Dukakis campaigns showed, constituency group campaigning can alienate the excluded swing voters, who typically dislike the narrow and divisive orthodoxies of the left and the right, long before the candidate gets around to thinking about November. And in 2000, unlike 1996, it's reasonably clear the Republican nominee will be fighting for those swing voters from the get-go. Even from the mechanical, add-up-the-voters point of view (which grossly oversimplifies the extent to which actual voters are motivated by group identity), Ms. Brazile's analysis falls short by ignoring young voters, "wired workers," upwardly mobile suburbanites, and political independents. These are voters who were crucial to the 1992 and 1996 victories, to Democratic House gains in 1996 and 1998, and to recent Democratic comebacks in regions previously dominated by Republicans. They also happen to be areas of the Democratic electorate where Gore's rival for the nomination, Bill Bradley, is doing very well. We hope Donna Brazile's sketch of the "pillars" of Democratic strength does not represent the genuine blueprint for the Vice President's campaign. ***Breakthrough on Federal Education Aid*** This week Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-CT), flanked by Sen. Evan Bayh (D-IN) and Reps. Cal Dooley (D-CA) and Joe Hoeffel (D-PA), formally unveiled his legislation to reform federal education programs, the Public Education Reinvestment, Reinvention, and Rededication Act. This "Three Rs" embodies three key initiatives: real accountability for using federal funds to improve student achievement in poor-performing public schools; greater flexibility in how these funds are administered, through consolidation of dozens of programs into broad, performance-based grants; and better targeting of funds to the disadvantaged kids and poor schools that really need federal assistance. The "Three Rs" approach, based on a policy developed by the Progressive Policy Institute, offers the most fundamental restructuring of federal education policy since 1965, and a potential vehicle for a bipartisan breakthrough next year. For more on this, visit our web site at http://www.dlcppi.org/texts/social/education/liebersc.htm. ### -------------------------------------------- Subscribe and Unsubscribe -------------------------------------------- You may subscribe to this list at any time by sending an e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "SUBSCRIBE NEWDEMNEWS" in the body of the message. You may leave the list at any time by sending an e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "SIGNOFF NewDemNews" in the body of the message. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Membership is your key to unlocking doors to the DLC-PPI world of people and ideas. 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