IT funds in stimulus are on 'right track,' tech execs say

Coinciding with the House markups today, more than 100 high-tech CEOs and business leaders, including top executives from Dell, Hewlett-Packard and Intel Corp., urged lawmakers to support investment in U.S. digital infrastructure to boost jobs.

They cited in particular the need for stimulus money in the areas of broadband deployment, electronic medical records, and energy efficiency. Industry officials said that a $40 billion boost to the nation's IT systems in 2009 would create 949,000 jobs, more than half of them in small businesses.

Financial assistance for IT is "critical for the nation -- not only to help us dig out of the hole we find ourselves in today but for our global competitiveness tomorrow," Technology CEO Council Executive Director Bruce Mehlman said on a conference call with reporters.

The House Appropriations Committee's package includes $20 billion for health IT; $11 billion for electrical grid efficiency; and $6 billion for broadband and wireless services -- figures that Mehlman called "very much on the right track."

Dean Garfield, president of the Information Technology Industry Council, called the broadband funds a good start but said they should be increased to equal the $20 billion allocated to health IT, which he said would have a "dramatic" impact. Garfield said prospects for funding the three IT portfolios in the Senate bill look "positive," though he warned that the process may take longer in the Senate, which can consider amendments more easily and engage in lengthier debate.

"On broadband, a number of senators want to look at creative ways of expanding what's going on in the House," he said. Executives on the call had not seen specific funding numbers from President Obama. But Christopher Hansen, who heads the Technology Association of America (a merger of the Information Technology Association of America and the American Electronics Association) said the new administration is "planning to do a lot."

TechNet President Lezlee Westine, who was also on the call, recently led a meeting between high-tech CEOs and Obama transition team officials, which Mehlman termed "highly productive." Mehlman also praised the $10 billion allotted by appropriators for research and development as well as science, technology, engineering and math education. The language would help fund competitiveness legislation passed by Congress and signed by former President Bush in 2007.