Tech CEOs tell Obama to speed up stimulus spending

The CEOs of 34 technology companies today sent a letter asking President Barack Obama to release stimulus funds more quickly, modify immigration laws to attract talented workers and create a favorable tax environment for businesses to spur investment.

The letter (pdf) was sent to the White House ahead of Obama's jobs summit tomorrow. Signers include John Chambers of Cisco, Michael Dell of Dell, Dirk Meyer of AMD, Paul Otellini of Intel, Steve Ballmer of Microsoft and Mark Hurd of Hewlett-Packard.

A handful of companies, including Kodak, Xerox, Google and Siemens, will join the discussions tomorrow.

A major theme of the letter is the need for more regulatory certainty to spur investment. For example, the CEOs say they need rules and guildelines for healthcare IT, broadband networks and smart-grid technologies so companies will be more comfortable spending money in those areas.

The CEOs also want to make sure the administration does not let R&D tax credits lapse and does not impose a $200 billion tax increase on revenue made overseas.

"Before the end of this year, we encourage enactment of a permanent extension of a strengthened research and development tax credit and other key business tax incentives set to expire at the end of this year," the letter said.

"Finally, American innovation and long-term economic and job growth will only be strong if we continue to open new markets to U.S. goods and services around the world where 95 percent of all consumers live. The American standard of living depends on rebuilding our manufacturing sector and thus requires focusing on developing more trade opportunities with the rest of the world."