Bush, in a speech at the Department of Commerce in Washington DC, threw his weight behind a continued ban on federal taxes on internet access, and talked up the importance of widespread broadband and wireless internet access.
Kerry meanwhile, on a fund-raising tour in California’s Silicon Valley, revealed policies on tax breaks for investment in start-up companies, emphasized the importance of technology in education, and criticized Bush’s record on leading US innovation.
Both candidates emphasized the importance of broadband internet access. Bush talked up powerline technology and wireless spectrum as a means to bring higher speed net access to rural areas, and said he supported moves to keep internet access tax-free.
We need to use our power lines better, Bush said. They go everywhere. It seems to make sense, doesn’t it, if what you’re looking for is avenues into the home. Well, electricity goes into the home. And so one great opportunity is to spread broadband throughout America via our power lines.
Bush said powerline is still largely held back by technological compatibility issues, which he urged the DoC to resolve. Kerry, while proposing his own set of ideas for spurring broadband, claimed that the US has fallen behind in its adoption rates since Bush came to power.
We won’t get very far with a leadership that lets America fall to 10th in the world when it comes to adopting broadband internet access, Kerry said. We need a leadership that says if Bangalore in India can be completely wired, then so should all of America.
Kerry’s plan would also give a 10% tax credit for investments in current broadband deployment in rural and inner city areas. He said investments in next-generation faster broadband anywhere in the nation would get a 20% tax break. The five-year plan would cost $2bn, he said.
Kerry also proposed a $6bn ten-year plan to tax-exempt investments in small businesses that are held for five years or more. He also said he would work with Congress to extend the current Research & Experimentation tax credit, which rewards companies for investing in R&D.
Both candidates also talked about wireless internet access, and the need to free up more spectrum to be allocated for that purpose. Bush backed the proposed Commercial Spectrum Enhancement Act,which would auction off spectrum currently allocated to the government.
Bush said in his speech: One of things we need to do is unlock the spectrum’s value economic value and entrepreneurial potential without, by the way, crowding out important government functions. And we can do both.
Kerry said the government could raise as much as $30bn, which could be used to fund his research plans, auctioning off spectrum. He stressed that, first, spectrum should be allocated to emergency services and for unlicensed public use, such as for in private wi-fi networks.
