organization that's been around for about 15 years, and be our whole focus is to move an innovation agenda across the country. >> host: who -- which companies are members of technet? >> guest: i'd say we've got a nice list of good companies, large and small, from the silicon valley to boston to texas, so, you know, some of the names that you would hear of, that you would know of from microsoft, google, cisco, intel, but also companies like autodesk, a nice mix of companies. >> host: what is a technology policy? >> guest: technology policy is really all about technology-driven innovation. and so all the way from education to biomedical to social innovation, things that use technology. those are the things that get our attention. >> host: so specifically when we talk about issues, let's say net neutrality. what is it that technet does when it comes to net neutrality? >> guest: well, we take a position, and we get in the game of policy. and, you know, the game of policy can be messy sometimes. so we're trying to reach consensus amongst companies, work with our whole sector, even companies that aren't a part of technet, and then trying to get a coherent policy in place. we work with the fcc, we work with the house committees from congressman waxman to other folks, rockefeller, you know, try to fashion policies that make sense for the country. >> host: so what is technet's position on net neutrality? >> guest: you know, it's interesting, because it's one of those issues you happen to pick which is it all depends on how you define net neutrality. we now live in a time where no one's in favor of discrimination in terms of the internet, so i would say our position is to try to seek a balance between innovation and investment. you want private sector investment in the infrastructure of broadband. but at the same time you want to make sure that entrepreneurs are protected and not discriminated against and that there's competition and that the consumer is not harmed. so it's, basically, do no harm. i would say our position is based on hue i millty. we don't know where all technology's going to take us, so let's put a structure in place that will have some principles. and i think the fcc chairman laid out some good principles about broadband, and we tend to support those principles. >> host: so can you get your companies that belong to technet all on the same page when it comes to an issue like net neutrality? >> guest: well, you know, you never get 100% agreement on every aspect of an issue, but i think we were able to forge a good enough consensus, and net neutrality is still very much let's wait and see, you know, with the changes in congress we're all sort of waiting to see how this is going to play out. we were very much in favor of let's have language that makes sure wireless is covered in some way, let's make sure that the fcc itself has a level of authority to deal with these issues, and then let's have room for technical analysis of where technology is taking us. that tends to be the framework of what we've been looking at at technet. >> host: broadband plan, that was rolled out about a year ago. >> guest: uh-huh. >> host: what's your position? >> guest: very much in favor, and we applauded the administration for being the first one to have a broadband plan, and i think it lays out some good markers in key areas all the way from spectrums, universal service to net neutrality and the kinds of investments we need and sets some big goals about where the country is going to be this five years. i think that's a good thing, and i think it sets a knot star. -- north star. and i really, again, applaud julius genachowski and his team for putting this together. >> host: when it comes to technology policy, do you see it moving in a public/private co-venture sort of way? >> guest: i would say it has to, you know? and i think when we try to go down a route that's only government making the investment, we run into trouble. if you look at this administration through the stimulus bill, they made a major down payment on broadband for the first time, but when you compare it to the private sector investment, it's still fractional. so they've got to work together, the private sector with government. and also the nonprofit sector. >> host: what about tax policy? >> guest: well, obviously, every corporation is impacted by tax policy, and our position is to do an overlay that says we need to be competitive. we need to create a tax where our companies can compete globally because so many more of technology-based companies are competing on a global playing field. so we have some concerns with the existing tax structure. >> host: how would you like to see it changed? >> guest: i would start with two things. one is always strategically where we would like to go and then it's tactically where should we go. strategically in terms of taxes we need to have a tax structure that's competitive globally meaning that we should not have this territorial tax where we tax our companies at a 35% rate and follow their profits overseas. and then we have, of course, this notion called deferral, and so we defer that until you bring the profits back to the u.s. i think we need to have a lower rate, a rate that makes us more competitive with the other global competitors. but tactically i think we have a unique opportunity here if we can figure out how to make this happen. and it could be bipartisan, and it's something you'll hear this term, repatriation. and really what that is is let's repatriate, let's bring some of those profits back to the united states. and if we could do a tax rate that makes sense, we could have, in essence, another stimulus that could be a real jolt in a positive way for our economy. estimates range as much as a trillion dollars is sitting offshore we could bring back to the united states if we could have a tax rate that makes sense. that's a short-term tactical solution, but i think it has to fit into a longer-term strategic look at how can we have a globally competitive tax structure while also bringing in tax receipts for the government which certainly needs it. >> host: rey ramsey, a lot of people on our morning show, the washington journal, or on communicators when we've talked about tax policies, they all agree on this. who's holding it up? >> guest: unfortunately, sometimes tax policy gets caught up in some of the demagoguery that can occur in washington because this is good policy, and i think i'm hopeful and optimistic that we can have the right coalition come together and figure out a way to do this. what you have to first do is say what's the rate, you know? so you're not going to bring the money back, you're not going to repatriate it at 35, so we have to come up with a rate that makes sense. then the next question is, should it be open in terms of bringing it back with the companies, or do we want to do something around jobs or investment? i think if we can sort that out, the administration working together with corporate america and other organizations, unions and others, i think we can reach a deal. bipartisan. >> host: your organization, technet, is only 15 years old. why did it not form earlier? >> guest: that's hard to say. and i think it really coincides with the maturation of the tech sector. you know, remember, we're made up of so many entrepreneurs and engineers and folks that wouldn't naturally turn to washington. they look to the universities, and they look to themselves, and they look to venture capitalists. but suddenly over time beginning to see, well, you know, we're in this together with government, policies do make a difference, and so i think that they increasingly see the value. >> host: do you find that washington understands the tech world? >> guest: i think that that is an ongoing process of each side understanding the other. >> host: does silicon valley feel isolated from washington? >> guest: i think some would say at times. we do, but there's a growing awareness of washington's role, you know? and some would say for better, some would say for worse. but washington plays a role, it's significant if you look at clean tech, the role of the government in clean tech is very important. the role of government has historically been very important in terms of investing, in terms of r&d. so it's always been there, and i think there's just a growing realization. >> host: another policy, rey ramsey, that technet is involved in is education. >> guest: correct. correct. we've been supportive of the administration in their race to the top initiative. we're very much in favor of shaking up the existing orthodoxy of education. we believe that there are some things that work that we have to double down on. if you look at our education system, you're well aware how we slip behind other countries. this notion of stem, science, technology, engineering and math. we believe that that's got to have greater importance, higher investment in terms of our schools. we've got to do testing that makes sense, and another thing that makes sense is an extended school day, a longer school day. we simply have to have more instruction in the class room. >> host: um, who should be investing in that? >> guest: i think, well, clearly government should be investing in that. our tax dollars, look, the federal government is still only a fraction of the education budget, so so much of this action has to occur at the local level, at the state level. so it's not just a washington, d.c. issue although expenditures of the department of education have gone up dramatically. what i think secretary duncan has done a very good job of is saying we need to look at how teachers are trained, how we evaluate teachers and sort of open this up and bring in new thoughts. we applaud that. >> host: um, what are tech companies doing privately to support education? we had the ceo of qualcomm in for an interview, and he talked about a program that they were developing with the school system in north carolina. are tech companies doing this on a private basis? >> guest: there are so many exciting things going on with technology companies. you have social innovation work that's being done, cisco has been doing work for years through the cisco academy. you have intel with the intel clubhouse. you have hewlett-packard. there are a number of companies that are increasingly doing more. we have formed a nonprofit at technet called technet works. and our goal is to promote some of the work that the tech sector is doing in education and other areas, but also leverage some of those investments in a stronger way. so our mission is to facilitate technology-infused social innovation, and that's what our new nonprofit is doing. >> host: well, the education sector ties in to another problem that technet has been addressing or looking at which is the immigration problem. >> guest: correct. >> host: what is -- >> guest: tough issue. in terms of immigration. look, we have to step back, and i look at immigrationing as part of a broader issue. it's human capital. we just talked about education. education is part of human capital. human capital shortly defined are the people you have and how will you train them and how will you prepare them and the people you want, how will you bring them into america? how will you keep them and how will you make this all work together? so immigration is part of that. h-1b visa is part of that. there are some encouraging proposals, you know, that are out there that need support and, unfortunately, these human capital issues around immigration often get held hostage with the broader comprehensive immigration issue. >> host: so when it comes to h-1b visas, what would you like to see done? >> guest: i think we should have a policy that says america's open for business. we want the best and the brightest from around the world to come to the united states. we need to raise ceiling that we have on h-1b visas. it should be easier, and when any student graduates with a ph.d. or an engineering degree, we ought to stamp a visa to their diploma and make it easy for them to stay in america. america has to be the place that's open for business in terms of human capital. but at the same time that's not a strategy by itself. it's also saying we have to work on our own domestic pipeline of human capital which is let's train americans, and let's have a better school system that prepares people for the jobs of today and the jobs of tomorrow. >> host: rey ramsey is the ceo of technet, he's our guest on "communicators." mr. ramsey, looking at open secrets.org and some of the campaign contributions that your federal pac made, the majority went to democrats in both the house and in the senate. why? >> guest: well, first, you know, in the open secret it doesn't have all the information, so i they that -- say that with a smile. our primary role in fundraising is to serve as an aggregator. we work with our member companies, and we do events. we did this cycle roughly 87 political events -- >> host: in silicon valley? in the washington? >> guest: in boston, in seattle and in texas. these are places where we have operations, and we bring people together. we bring pacs together, we bring companies together to focus on candidates that support an innovation agenda. so we supported democrats as well as republicans. >> host: and how -- what was the split? >> guest: i believe that the split this past cycle was something like 60/40 democrat-republican. so, and some of that was a factor of incumbency, of course. but we've supported candidates on both sides. >> host: did you support joe barton and fred upton? [laughter] >> guest: you know, i don't want to state right now all the different candidates that we support, but i believe we've done events for several of those -- excuse me, several of those individuals. >> host: well, joe barton was a guest on "the communicators" recently. >> guest: i saw. >> host: and here is one thing he had to say, want to get your response to this. congressman barton, if you were chairman, could you see the ceos of companies such as facebook and google coming to testify on issues such as privacy in front of the committee? >> we -- i think you could almost guarantee that. >> host: mr. ramsey. >> guest: i think it's good. as he said, you can guarantee that companies are going to be having a dialogue. hopefully it's not -- it ought to be a dialogue, you know? there should be a give and take, a listening and an exchange of thoughts, concerns, ideas. and so that's what i would, that's what i would say. whoever's chairing this committee whether it's upton or whether it's barton, you know, we look for that active exchange. there are serious issues that have to be addressed. we know that privacy concerns are increasingly raised, there are other issues around trade that get raised. i think that it's good to have that kind of exchange. >> host: mr. barton in that interview also talked about more oversight of the fcc. >> guest: yes. well, look, that's the prerogative of congress in the terms of having oversight of the fcc. i think the fcc has done some good work, but there's more to be done. i mean, i think that if you spoke to the fcc chair, he would tell you himself there's more that he would like to be getting done, you know, right now. and i think if congress gets involved as long as we're all being constructive, again, i think that's a good thing. >> host: what's your background? >> guest: my background is, of course, a lawyer as so many people are in this city. i grew up in the new jersey, went out to oregon. so i actually have a background in state government, state politics where i was the head of housing for the state of oregon, and then i moved east. i was the chairman of habitat for humanity international. i started a nonprofit with several other individuals called one economy corporation which was dedicated to bringing broadband to the poor, and we're in 17 countries. you know, right now. so i got to work with the tech culture in that, in that space. >> host: how did you get involved in broadband policy? >> guest: you know, it just became sense when we were working on housing the poor, the issue became how do you connect the poor to the economy. and broadband, to me, is the most efficient way to get that done. so starting one economy was the marriage of broadband and technology with affordable housing and the poor creating efficiencies to bring low-income people into the space. >> host: what about in the united states? is one economy active in the u.s.? >> guest: one economy's very active in the united states, and we have a program that i'm very excited with called digital connectors which are young people that we train. so you talk about human capital, we've graduated 3500 students who go through training, who provide a community service, and they're technology ambassadors in low-income communities. >> host: now, the national journal reported that one economy's, a lot of one economy's success is due to, quote, the political savviness of its former chairman, rey ramsey, and his friendship with julius genachowski. how did you get to know the chairman of the fcc? [laughter] >> guest: it was one of these things, you know, we just did outreach. at one economy, again, we believe that it's truly one economy that's made up of multiple sectors, the ngo sector, nongovernmental sector, made up of the private sector and government. so at that point we were just reaching out to many different companies and different people are placed in different jobs, so that's just been an ongoing relationship. >> host: is he still a friend? is. >> guest: i would, i would say the chairman is somebody that i believe in and is a friend, but so are a number of other folks, and i'm still the chairman of one economy. >> host: oh, you still are. >> guest: i'm no longer the ceo. >> host: well, now that you're president and ceo of technet, when you have a conversation with julius genachowski, can you have one off the record? >> guest: well, you know, when i talk with him, it's usually to talk about policy issues, and so it's either at his request or at my request, and we follow the appropriate, you know, procedures to talk about policy. we don't, you know, sort of blur the lines. >> host: you were quoted in the huffington post regarding broadband adoption today. only 46% of african-americans and 40% of hispanics have broadband, and surveys show many don't see how it benefits them or that it's too expensive. again, this road map must help deliver creative solutions to alleviate barriers to adoption such as digital literacy. >> guest: yeah. and you know why i wrote that is because sometimes i think in policy around broadband we're pretless about the deployment -- breathless about the deployment issue. and we have roughly 97% of america has some level of broadband available to it. the issue in this country is adoption. why is it that certain populations either aren't exposed to broadband, don't see the relevance for broadband or don't have the training? so the the biggest issue is adoption, and this is why i was excited by the broadband plan which addresses the issue of adoption. >> host: what do you think the future of the broadband plan is with the republicans in control in the house? >> guest: i think it still has legs because, again, so much of the plan requires the private sector and the ngo sector. and i think what the fcc did with this and blair levin who sort of really was the author of a lot of this was to sort of call to arms to a lot of different entities. so it's not all going to be about only government action, but republicans and democrats care about spectrum. that's an issue that's got to be resolved. most folks care about doing something about universal service, that's an issue that has to be resolved. so i have no expectation that suddenly these issues are going to be put in a drawer somewhere because our republican friends are coming into power. i look forward to that continued dialogue. >> host: with, when speaking with joe barton last week on "the communicators," he talked about the spectrum, and he advocated an auction, no conditions. >> guest: uh-huh. >> host: on the d block. >> guest: uh-huh. >> host: what do you think? >> guest: look, what's most important on the d block is let's get the auction moving. we shouldn't have any delay in that. we have a lot of companies and a lot of entities that need spectrum, so i'm just in favor of let's get it going. >> host: rick boucher lost. >> guest: yes. >> host: what does that mean to technet? is. >> guest: i mean, we lose someone who is enormously talented, who is very sophisticated on these issues. you would be hard pressed to find anybody superior to him in terms of his knowledge and intellect, you know, on the subject matter. and i have a feeling that we'll hear from him, that we'll see him around in some way, in some capacity. i don't have any inside information on that, but someone that talented is going to find a way to continue to be involved in policy. >> host: what's your relationship with senator rockefeller? >> guest: i, again, have done work with him particularly through one economy in west virginia, and again, he is a strong advocate for so many important aspects of telecommunications, particularly work in rural communities. >> host: rey ramsey is the ceo of technet, ceo and president. how long have you been with technet now? >> guest: just since january. >> host: and what have you learned? >> guest: a lot. every day you learn what you i don't know. so the fun of the job is learning about the needs of the companies and what their positions are on different things. but it's an ongoing learning job, and that's what makes it fun. >> host: when you have policy issues that your member companies disagree on, what do you do? is. >> guest: duck. [laughter] what's important is i call it, i look for the hour horizontal is, the issues that cut across that we can agree on. they are what i call vertical issues, companies will have that clash. i don't see that as our niche to sort of try to jump into those. we're looking for the bigger issues like human capital issues, like issues around broadband, things like that that we can reach broad consensus on and then figure out a way to work together. that's really our niche. >> host: one of the issues that is going to be coming up in the next congress is the issue of privacy. there's more and more noise around the issue of privacy. where does technet stand? >> guest: again, that's such a broad category to say privacy. what we have to do is start figuring out what kind of regime we're going to put in place in terms of monitoring, in terms of standards. privacy issues cut across trade, you know, issues. what does it mean overseas, where is technology moving? so i think what we've got to do is, most of all, make sure our laws are sophisticated enough with where technology continues to move. but we see it as something that our sector has to be responsible about because the consumers are concerned about it. so we take it very seriously. >> host: but isn't so much information already out there it's almost too late? >> guest: no, i wouldn't say it's too late because it's a question of what do you do with information, it's what's the role of the ftc, the federal trade commission. it's sort of sorting out the regulatory infrastructure here in the united states in the e.u. and in other places and saying what's the 21st century regime going to look like. and i think there's a lot of work to be done in that space. now, congressman boucher was a leading voice, you know, in that space, so i think there's going to have to be some regrouping to decide where we go in terms of policy. >> host: now, these companies, a lot of these tech companies already have so many private information of individuals. is this a case of saying trust us with this? >> guest: no, i don't think it's that because, again, there is a role for government in terms of having rules of the road. i mean, even though technology has enabled more information to be accumulated more than any other technology or any other regime, companies for years have had information. and that's what i've said, you know, federal trade commission, other entities have been regulatory in that space. now that you've got this warp speed of the gathering of data, the question is what's the regulatory framework that we're going to have in place, and i think that's where we have to continue to reach consensus on. >> host: privacy ties into the issue of security. what should the federal government be doing, in your view, when it comes to technology/security? >> guest: again, i think the federal government's got to look at security in terms of the consumer, but security in terms of intellectual property, in terms of companies. and i think that there's a lot of work left to be done in terms of both. particularly when you look at some of the piracy issues, you know, that are happening overseas. it costs our sector a lot of money when you look at what's happening in some countries, particularly this asia, systematically taking information. in terms of security in the united states, i think we've got to continue to make more investments in this. if it bears some national security issues if our system crashes, if the suddenly we don't have secure networks. i think we've got to do more in terms of making sure there's security for the emergency management folks. a whole host of issues that we've got to focus on. >> host: given the nature of technology, how much of this just stops at the border? i mean, doesn't -- aren't we getting to the point where complete international cooperation is necessary? >> guest: we have to -- >> host: on all issues, not just security. >> guest: we have to increasingly have cooperation across the world because as i was pointing out, so many of our companies are multi-national companies. so they're dealing with regimes whether it's the e. u., asia, an individual country or the united states. so there is this overlap, and i think there's a lot to be done, a lot to be done. >> host: when it comes to this overlap especially -- let's just talk about cell phones, or, you know, wireless products. i mean, at what point is wireless just going to be internationalized? >> guest: well, it's happening. you know, i don't think we need governments to say we're going to mandate the internationalization, but what we do need to do is make sure like we do in the united states, interon the rabbit, you know, the way we have in the united states, data roaming, you know, you're running into this as people are traveling. how do i use my cell phone, how do i use my device? so we don't have yet all of the same regimes in place regulatory wise that we have domestically, but all of these are coming issues. >> host: president clinton was well known for his interest in technology issues back in the '90s. what are you finding in the current administration? >> guest: i think this administration takes a pretty sophisticated look in terms of -- because, again, look at the fcc. but you also look at technology in the other areas like the investments in smart grid that were made through the stimulus act. the tying of research and development and putting more dollars into that space, making large investments there, the promotion of s.t.e.m.. all of these things are all sewer -- interlocked, you know, in terms of technology. >> host: do you work at all with yi vet at the white house? >> guest: one of the folks we engage. >> host: rey ramsey is president and ceo of technet and remains chairman of one economy. thank you for being here. >> guest: thank you. >> "the communicators" also airs each monday night. if you missed any of this discussion with technet ceo rey ramsey on how federal policy is impacting technology companies, you can see "the communicators" again tonight at 8 p.m. eastern, 5 pacific here on c-span 3.