The bi-partisan Partnership for a New American Economy recently published a very interesting report — Not Coming to America: Why the US is Falling Behind in the Global Race for Talent — that speaks to a lot of the challenges plaguing the current US immigration policy. Because of those challenges, “the future of America’s position as the global magnet for the world’s most talented and hardest-working is in jeopardy.” Here are a few of the projected economic realities of not reforming immigration laws to keep up with other countries:

SHORTAGE OF WORKERS IN INNOVATION INDUSTRIES: Jobs in science, technology, engineering, and math (“STEM” fields) are increasing three times faster than jobs in the rest of the economy, but American students are not entering these innovative fields in sufficient numbers. As a result, by 2018, we face a projected shortfall of 230,000 qualified advanced-degree STEM workers.

SHORTAGE OF YOUNG WORKERS: The US population is aging, baby boomers are retiring en masse, and the growth in the US labor force has slowed to historic lows of less than 1 percent. We cannot continue to produce the GDP growth the nation has come to expect without dramatic increases in productivity or welcoming more working age immigrants.

A STALLED ECONOMY: The US has faced years of stunted economic growth. History shows that new businesses are the biggest drivers of job creation, yet the most recent US Census data show that the number of business startups has hit a record low.

This concern isn’t unique to the United States. With a global focus on innovation and technology, countries around the world are actively competing for the best and the brightest. In Canada, a report a few weeks ago spoke to Canada’s need to double in size in the next few decades or risk losing relevance and becoming just another resource-rich colony. The nation’s response? It’s ready to open its doors to more immigrants.

The same applies to the United States … It just may take longer.

Go back to how this country was built, and apply that to today. The biggest difference: The “skilled trades” we talk about in the most general sense are no longer carpenters like my grandfather but highly educated programmers, engineers and researchers. The idea isn’t to replace the programmers, engineers and researchers in the US, rather it’s to meet the existing unmet needs for programmers, engineers and researchers.

In all of SoftLayer’s efforts to affect change in the US immigration policy, we have to make clear that our goal is not to drop the walls simply to add more permanent residents. It’s about lowering many of the current artificial barriers that might prevent the next Fortune 500 founder from starting his or her business in the United States. If you don’t think that’s a serious concern, I’d point to a pretty surprising stat in the “Not Coming to America” report: “Today, more than 40 percent of America’s Fortune 500 companies were founded by an immigrant or a child of an immigrant.”

Immigration drives the economy. It’s not a drain on the economy. Every country needs more smart people because smart people create new ideas, new ideas become new businesses, and new businesses create new jobs.

Because this is a politically charged issue, it’s one I know many people don’t necessarily agree with. Along with immigration, we have to look at how the education system can empower young people like my son to become the programmers, engineers and researchers that the US will need, and we have to be intentional about not simply adding permanent residents for the sake of adding permanent residents. If you have any thoughts one way or the other, I’d encourage you to share them with us here in a blog comment or link us to any of the resources you’ve found interesting in researching and discussing the topic.

-@gkdog

But hey, Sarah Palin is a former state champion basketball player and sportscaster who competed in beauty pageants and enjoys hunting and fishing. What’s not to like here? Of course, I don’t want to raise the ire of her husband, Alaska’s “First Dude” Todd Palin. I mean, he’s won a 2,000 mile snowmobile race four times, and the one time I know of that he finished fourth, it was because he broke his arm along the way but still finished the race. First “dude” indeed!

Sarah Palin appears to have a background to which I can relate. She and her family are neither Ivy League educated elitists nor entrenched Washington DC insiders. From what I’ve read, she and her family deal with many of the issues that everyday folks deal with: transporting kids to their activities, going to church, running a small business, balancing a two career family, sending a son off to the military and to battle, raising a special needs child, and handling a teenage pregnancy situation. From this list of things, this family can identify with millions and millions of other families.

What I like most about Sarah Palin is that she and her husband have small business in their background. When asked why they eloped, husband Todd said they had a bad fishing year and thus had no money for a wedding. They understand the ups and downs of small business because they’ve lived it. Consequently, she has been cognizant of supporting small businesses in her policies.

Policies toward small businesses are important to me because small businesses are our bread and butter here at SoftLayer. That is who we serve – small businesses who need enterprise class IT infrastructure and services but are too small to provide them on their own. Though we are larger than most of our customers, SoftLayer still fits in the small business category. Hey, we came from 10 guys with a dream and no revenue for 6 months – you can’t get any more “small business” than that! The small business culture still permeates this place and I hope it always will. When I send out some sort of metrics report to the management team, it usually kicks off an email thread of smart-aleck remarks while we review the metrics.

Just so that I give equal time to both sides here, Barack Obama has outlined some specific policies that will affect small businesses. Along with 40 million others, I watched Obama’s historic speech at the Democratic convention. There were several things that I liked therein, such as his desire to develop new alternative energy sources. But when he talked about helping small businesses, I wonder if he’s out of touch with us because he said that he will eliminate the capital gains tax for small businesses. Well, SoftLayer is responsible for and pays a LOT of taxes (sales taxes, franchise taxes, property taxes, income taxes, etc.) but we have never paid a penny of capital gains taxes. Unless a small business running a small real estate or money management operation, small businesses do not have capital gains. They’re not putting cash into stocks and bonds and holding them to sell them at a later gain – they’re putting the cash into payroll and operating expenses and advertising and capital expenditures to keep their business alive and growing. Word to Obama – if you want to help small businesses, please eliminate a tax that we actually pay!

I am totally in favor of policies that truly help small businesses. You are our customer base and whatever helps you helps us. Consequently, we are very focused on serving your small business. We want to help you establish the best IT cost structure for your needs as well as take away the headache of IT infrastructure so that you can focus on your core business more effectively. Just talk to Steven, Mary, Amanda, Arielle, Chris, Doug, Daniel, Laura, Michael (either one of them), Patrick, Justin, Don, Mathew, or John. They’ll treat you right.

Again, I haven’t decided who to vote for yet. But if I select a Republican candidate for the first time in 24 years, I won’t necessarily say that I voted for John McCain – I’ll say I voted for Sarah Palin!

-Gary