Bush urges more visas for tech workers

President Bush, promoting part of his agenda aimed at boosting the U.S. economy, called on Congress to increase the number of visas for engineers and physicists and spend more on research and development.

"We must remain a flexible, technologically based economy," Bush said Friday after touring a 3M plant in Maplewood, Minn. "Innovation is a vital part of the future of the United States of America."

Bush outlined proposals in his Jan. 31 State of the Union address that he said would help keep the U.S. ahead of economic rivals such as China and India.

He wants to spend $5.9 billion next year on what the administration calls the "American competitiveness initiative," with $4.6 billion of the money being used to extend a research tax credit that benefits companies such as Microsoft and Boeing.

Technology companies face a shortage of expert workers, Bush said. "If we don't do something about how to fill those high-technology jobs here, they'll go somewhere else," he said. "There's a lot of bright engineers and physicists from other lands," and Congress should raise the cap on so-called H-1B visas, Bush said.

These visas allow U.S. companies to employ foreign workers with special training and are now capped at 65,000 a year. The Bush administration hasn't specified a new cap and will work with Congress, said White House spokeswoman Erin Healy.

Congress temporarily lifted the cap for five years beginning in 1999. The yearly cap reached 195,000 in fiscal years 2001, 2002 and 2003 and dropped back to 65,000 in fiscal year 2004, said Bill Strassberger, a spokesman for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.