Bush wants more young Indian minds in US

[rodeodance]

Bush wants more young Indian minds in US

CHIDANAND RAJGHATTA
< 26 Jan, 2007 0003hrs ISTTIMES NEWS NETWORK >


WASHINGTON: President Bush on Wednesday invoked the young Indian scientist to call for a hike in the H1-B visa programme which allows skilled foreign workers to come to the United States.

In a speech on energy issues before workers and executives at a Dupont facility in Delaware, Bush pressed for both free trade and freer movement of skilled professionals, saying they could help meet America’s energy challenges, and summoned the Indian example in both cases.

"We've got to expand what's called H1B visas...I feel strongly about what I'm telling you. It makes no sense to say to a young scientist from India, you can't come to America to help this company develop technologies that help us deal with our problems," Bush told the Dupont gathering.

The H1-B visa program is currently capped at 65,000 and efforts are on to expand it to 115,000 to meet what high-tech industry executives say is a worrisome shortage of high skilled people. A bill to this effect was rejected in the last Congress but it is expected to be introduced again in the 110th Congress.

Opponents of the program say there is no such demand and inviting more foreign workers will just displace American workers and drive down salaries.

Bush also invoked the booming Chinese and Indian economies to argue for free trade while warning Americans about the impact of their growth on oil prices.

....

http://www.rawstory.com/showarticle.php?src=http%3A%2F%2Ftimesofindia.indiatimes.com%2FBush_wants_more_young_Indian_minds_in_United_States%2Farticleshow%2F1461553.cms

[Briar]

1. How about

improving the education system by making it more accessible to the talented young American minds currently trapped by social immobility? Stealing the best brains from other countries because we are too penny-pinching and smugly self satisfied with an innately unfair social structure to educate our own kids properly (medicine is the most obvious example) is despicable.

[Mist]

2. Precisely--there's no reason Americans can't do these jobs, IF OUR

EDUCATION SYSTEM IS IMPROVED.

[Cobalt Violet]

3. They must fear educated Americans because they're eligible to vote.

Better to keep them uneducated. Otherwise they will demand to good pay and benefits.

[The_Casual_Observer]

4. Engineers & Scientists have to struggle to make ends meet in this country

I would have never gone into engineering if I knew how relatively little one gets paid compared to other professions.

[2Design]

5. hire americans -no more H1b visas n/t

[Vidar]

6. Eliminate everything but lords & peasants--not particularly original.